The Losses of Gettysburg

Excerpted from: Civil War Trust Both armies had been badly bloodied. The Army of the Potomac began the battle with 83,289 men. In three days it suffered total losses in killed, wounded and missing of 17,684 men, or 21.2 percent. All the army’s corps except the VI had long casualty lists. The I and III Corps were so badly decimated that they were ultimately combined into the II Corps. Of Meade’s initial corps commanders, Maj. Gen. John Reynolds was dead and Maj. Gens. Daniel Sickles and Winfield Scott Hancock were both seriously wounded. Lee had brought 75,054 men across the Potomac into Pennsylvania. His unsuccessful attempts to punch...

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The Wounded at Gettysburg

From: AmericanCivilWar.com Over 30,000 soldiers of both armies lay wounded in temporary field hospitals at the close of the Battle of Gettysburg. In every sense of the word, these were not real hospitals at all, but private homes and buildings which afforded some shelter and a nearby source of water. Every barn, church, warehouse, and outbuilding within a ten mile radius of Gettysburg was filled with suffering men, so many that they could not all be attended to at once. Surgeons from the various regiments worked for days without rest to treat the wounded and medical supplies were hurried to the scene as rapidly as possible. Still, many...

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Camp Letterman: The Largest Field Hospital in North America

From: The Camp Letterman Fund Trust Camp Letterman was once the largest field hospital ever built in North America. Camp Letterman General Hospital near Gettysburg was chosen for on the George Wolf Farm, east of Gettysburg on the York Pike. The farm was near the main road and the railroad where a depot was established. Trains would deliver supplies for the Gettysburg camp and take recovering patients to permanent hospitals in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington. Over 30,000 soldiers of both armies lay wounded in temporary field hospitals at the close of the Battle of Gettysburg. As the Medical Director of the Army of the Potomac,...

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Dr. Letterman's Gettysburg Report

Dr. Letterman's Gettysburg Report HEADQUARTERS ARMY OF THE POTOMAC,MEDICAL DIRECTOR'S OFFICE,Camp near Culpeper Court-House, Va., October 3, 1863.GENERAL: I have the honor to submit the following report on the operations of the medical department of this army at the battle of Gettysburg, July 1, 2, and 3:As the subject of transportation has an important bearing upon the manner in which the wounded are attended to after a battle, it is necessary to make some allusion to the manner in which this department was supplied. It is scarcely necessary to say that if-the transportation is not sufficient to enable the officers of the department...

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Gettysburg: Meteorology of the Battle

Notes by Rev. Dr. Jacobs The extreme weather during and after the Battle of Gettysburg played a role in the health hardships of those who fought. A math professor at Pennsylvania College, Rev. Dr. Michael Jacobs, recorded his meteorological observations during the battle. They were later published in 1885 in the "Star and Sentinel" by his son. For the Star and Sentinel. METEOROLOGY OF THE BATTLE NOTES BY REV. DR. JACOBS. MR. EDITOR: While reading, yesterday, the Comte de Paris' thorough account of the battle of Gettysburg, the reference which he makes to the increased heat on the third day, suggested the examination...

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Sophronia Bucklin Nurses the Wounded at Gettysburg

From: stevehblogdotcom.wordpress “So you had a proposal of marriage did you Auntie? Well, it seems funny but I’m glad you had the grit to answer him as you did. Surely you do not need anyone else to take care of.” “Auntie” is Sophronia E. Bucklin; the niece Grace N. Thorburn. Bucklin died in 1902, in her 70s, never having married. Perhaps Thorburn was onto something; after her service as a Civil War nurse, Bucklin may just have had enough of men and their demands. Though hardly as well-known as Clara Barton, Dorothea Dix and Louisa May Alcott, her sisters in the Civil War nursing sorority, Bucklin published “In Hospital and Camp,”...

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Gettysburg: This Consecrated Ground

From: NPS.gov After the battle, the Gettysburg area was a tragic place. Dead horses, the bodies of soldiers, and the debris of battle littered its trampled fields. Many of its buildings were damaged, its fences gone, and its air polluted with the odor of rotting flesh. Nearly 20,000 wounded and dying soldiers occupied its public buildings and many of its houses; Union and Confederate hospitals clustered at many of its farms. Medical authorities transferred the wounded to general hospitals in nearby cities as soon as practicable. Dr. Henry Janes, the surgeon in charge of medical activities at Gettysburg, established a general hospital...

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Cornelia Hancock volunteers at Gettysburg From: NPS.gov Cornelia Hancock was a 23-year-old woman from Hancock's Bridge, New Jersey, who sought to aid the war effort in some way. The battle at Gettysburg offered her the opportunity, and she made her way to the field, arriving on July 7th. She described the scene she encountered at the Union Second Corps hospital, where she served as a volunteer nurse. Learning that the wounded of the Third Division of the Second Corps, including the 12th Regiment of New Jersey, were in a Field Hospital about five miles outside of Gettysburg, we determined to go there early the next morning, expecting to...

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A TEEN EYEWITNESS AT GETTYSBURG "Charge of the Pennsylvania Reserves" By Tillie Pierce The Confederates faced toward them, fired, halted, and then began to retreat. I saw them falling as they were climbing over a stone wall and as they were shot in the open space. The fighting lasted but a short time, when the Confederates were driven back in the direction of Little Round Top. I think they passed between the Round Tops. On this evening the number of wounded brought to the place was indeed appalling. They were laid in different parts of the house. The orchard and space around the buildings were covered with the shattered and dying,...

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Camp Letterman, Gettysburg

From: CelebrateGettysburg.com Camp Letterman was a large, temporary general hospital established at Gettysburg on July 20, 1863. The first mention of establishing a general hospital at Gettysburg was contained in a circular from the Headquarters of the Army of Potomac dated July 5, 1863. The prime focus of the circular dealt with troop movements and accompanying supplies for the pursuit of Gen. Robert E. Lee’s retreating forces; however, care of the wounded was systematically covered in general terms. Assistant Adjutant-Gen. Seth Williams indicated, “The medical director will establish a general hospital at Gettysburg for the wounded that...

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Tillie Pierce's Gun

By Matilda "Tillie" Jane Pierce Teenage Eyewitness and Nurse at Gettysburg Some weeks after they had left, a Provost Marshal was sent to the town, to collect all arms and accoutrements belonging to the Government. Some one informed him, that there was a gun at our house, for it was not long before two soldiers called. I suppose I had been bragging too much about my relic. On going to the door, they asked me whether we had a musket about the house. I said: "Yes sir; but it is mine." They replied that the Provost Marshal had sent them after it, and that they would have to take it. I told them what the soldier who gave...

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Seminary Ridge Museum at Gettysburg

By Macrina Cooper-White, Associate Editor, HuffPost Science When you think about the American Civil War, you might picture thousands of casualties out on the battlefield. But have you ever thought about the aftermath of treating the wounded, and what it would have been like for those soldiers and the people who cared for them? In the three short days from July 1-3 in 1863, of the 165,000 soldiers who arrived to fight in Gettysburg, 51,000 ended up dead, wounded, missing or captured -- the largest number of casualties in any U.S. battle. The new Seminary Ridge Museum at Gettysburg, which opened its doors to the public on July 1 in commemoration...

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Blue Pills

From The Denver Post   At Robert Fox's pill manufacturing station, blue mercury pills are formed and cut by hand, during a living history display of Civil War medicine at the Confederate Field Hospital on Daniel Lady Farm on Wednesday, July 3, 2013 in Gettysburg, Pa. The pills were used to cure a wide range of ailments, including sexually transmitted diseases. Jeff Lautenberger for the Evening S...

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Using a Field Tourniquet to Assist in Amputation

From The Denver Post   Robert Sonntag of Orlando, Fla., uses a field tourniquet to assist in a recreation of a leg amputation during a living history display of Civil War medicine at the Confederate Field Hospital on Daniel Lady Farm on Wednesday, July 3, 2013 in Gettysburg, Pa. Sonntag described the difficulty and length of time it often took for a wounded solider to get from the battlefield to the hospital. At the time, amputations were the most common surgery. Jeff Lautenberger for the Evening Sun ...

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The Confederate Wounded and Withdrawal

By Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein   The care of the wounded was complicated by the Confederate withdrawal. The Southerners took as many of their wounded as they could in a train of 1,200 unpadded wagons that stretched for miles, traveling as rapidly as possible through mud and rain in order to avoid capture.   Many patients suffered severely from lack of food and water for thirty-six hours as well as from the pain caused by the lurching wagons. In addition, they had no medical care at ll since only guards and drivers accompanied them.   The 6,802 more severely wounded Confederates remained behind with some medical officers...

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Gettysburg is Overwhelmed

By Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein   Wounded and dead soldiers overwhelmed the town of Gettysburg and its environs, At least 160 locations served as hospitals, including the courthouse, college and seminary buildings, businesses and warehouses, hotels, churches, schools, forty-five homes in town, barns, farmhouses, and outbuildings.,   Yet many wounded soldiers remained lying in the open air in the rain. The Union fores were initially handicapped because, despite the protests of his medical director Jonathan Letterman, [General George G.] Meade had ordered the medical supply wagon trains to park near Westminster, Pennsylvania, about...

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Tillie Pierce, Teenage Nurse at Gettysburg

From The National Park Service This 15-year-old left town with her family to escape the battle only to find herself, in the end, nursing the sick and injured at the J. Weikert farm south of town. She continued caring for wounded soldiers upon returning to the family home on Baltimore Street. Among those she nursed was Colonel William Colvill of the 1st Minnesota Infantry. Tillie later wrote about her experiences in an article, "What a Girl Heard and Saw at the Battle." ...

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Elizabeth Salome (Sallie) Myers

Nurse at Gettysburg From The National Park Service   With little warning, this 21 year-old Gettysburg schoolteacher was suddenly thrust into the role of a nurse, tending to injured soldiers at her father's home and in the Catholic Church where hundreds of wounded Union and Confederate soldiers were hospitalized. She later contributed food and nursing assistance at Camp Letterman General Hospital east of town. Despite her claim that she could not stand the sight of blood, Sallie courageously contributed her time in the hospitals at Gettysburg with little recognition for her efforts....

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Casualties of the Weather at the Battle of Gettysburg

By Samantha-Rae Tuthill, AccuWeather.com Staff Writer   The Battle of Gettysburg is said to be the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War. Fought in Gettysburg, Pa., July 1 through 3 in 1863, historians put the number of causalities and missing Union and Confederate soldiers at 46,286. Bayonets, rifled muskets, cannons and infections all contributed to the carnage that took place 150 years ago today. The weather, however, created some causalities as well.   A Gettysburg man by the name of Rev. Dr. Michael Jacobs, a math professor at what was then called Pennsylvania College, had a strong interest in weather and recorded...

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