As shell-shocked residents emerged from their homes after the Battle of Gettysburg, they could barely recognize the once familiar surroundings. “There were many sights too horrible for description,” recalled professor Henry Jacobs. “Dead men lay in the streets from Wednesday till Saturday….Hundreds of dead horses were scattered about…They lay for weeks exposed to the July sun. When the wind blew from the south and west in the evenings, the stench was so overpowering that for a number of evenings all windows had to be closed…The Union dead on the field of the first day’s battle were covered with only a few inches of soil. Portions of the body protruded, as the rain washed away the soil. The Confederate dead on the fields of the second and third days’ fight were mostly buried in long trenches, made in haste and also very superficially covered.”1
An article in the July 16th edition of the Lutheran and Missionary reported that “Gettysburg is now a vast hospital, and there is scarcely a house to be found that does not contain one or more wounded men. All the public buildings are given up to their use; the churches, courthouse, college, theological seminary, are filled with the wounded, whilst all around the town for miles in every direction, hospital camps have been improvised, and barns, stables, and dwellings have been deprived of their legitimate tenants and devoted to the use of the wounded and their attendants.”2
The correspondent closed with a grim prediction: “Gettysburg will not soon recover from the blow it has received.”3
Perhaps no pen more poignantly described the desolation than that of resident J. Howard Wert: “The saddest, most pathetic sight in all the universe is a field of battle when the thunder of the cannon has ceased….When the splendor, the pomp and the circumstance of battle’s magnificently stern array have gone, then the horrible and the ghastly only remain and remain in their most terrible forms. Hideous is the sorrowful appearance of the bloated, distorted, and blackened dead, so lately noble, stalwart men as they are packed together, side by side, some in blue and some gray. But yet more horrible is the agony of the wounded to whom speedy death would often be an unspeakable boon…Days elapsed before the dead were all buried. Days elapsed before the wounded were all brought off the field. It was a gigantic task that confronted the willing hands that sought to alleviate their sufferings.”4
In the aftermath of the conflict, thousands of patients still required their wounds to be dressed or a shattered and painful limb to be removed. Those poor soldiers were found lying on the wet ground or upon bare floors in bloodied and soiled clothing. Although rations of hard tack and salted beef were distributed following the battle, the hot, nourishing delicacies so desperately craved by those suffering from shock and fatigue were almost non-existent. One observer was deeply touched by the patience, fortitude, and quiet dignity displayed by the injured warriors.5
For a visitor from New York, the perfunctory burial efforts and the destitute condition of the wounded elicited a legitimate query. “I do not know who should be censured for such things, or how far any one should be,” he wrote.6
It is unlikely that the crisis at Gettysburg could have been averted. It was simply a matter of logistics. The medical department could comfortably handle about 10,000 wounded. In the wake of the three-day battle, over 21,000 men required some degree of care. The Army of the Potomac’s surplus of some 4,500 patients could have been accommodated reasonably well, but the 6,000 to 7,000 Confederate wounded who were not fit to travel stretched the resources beyond its capacity.7
Most of the Southerners were left in primitive hospital camps south and west of the town, though the buildings at Pennsylvania College north of town also housed large numbers of Confederate wounded. The surgeons who remained behind to care for them faced acute shortages of food and supplies. One relief agency official remarked that “The terrible destruction of the many of the Rebels will not bear description. It was too horrible for recital.”8
The brigade hospitals of Pickett’s Division were located in the vicinity of Marsh Creek near the Fairfield Road. Following his severe wounding, General James Kemper was placed inside the home of William E. Myers, who operated the nearby mill owned by Francis Bream. A Confederate surgeon concluded that the general would soon die and ordered a coffin built for him. One of Kemper’s men, Sergeant David E. Johnston, reached the same conclusion. He did not believe that his commander would even live through the night as “his sufferings were so great – almost beyond endurance.” It was not until July 27th that the Gettysburg Compiler printed the following retraction: “Gen. Kemper, of the Confederate army, believed killed at Gettysburg, it is now stated, was only wounded, and is in a fair way to recover. He is lying at Bream’s Mill, three miles from Gettysburg, and was shot through the breast, the ball lodging in his back.”9
Isaac Trimble, a Confederate general who also led troops in Pickett’s Charge, was left behind at Gettysburg. Early in the morning of July 4th, his left leg was amputated by a team of surgeons. Before the operation was performed, Trimble bawled out the doctors for not amputating the limb following a similar wounding a year earlier. He pointed out, with logic hard to dispute, that had they heeded this advice, the bullet fired into his leg the previous day would have missed him.10
Several days later, Trimble was relocated to the home of Robert McCurdy on Chambersburg Street. Young Charles McCurdy recalled that General Trimble was “a delightful and appreciative guest.” Since the general displayed a fondness for children, Charles and his sisters were frequent visitors to his room and helped to relieve the tedium of his confinement.11
Major Henry Kyd Douglas, of General Ewell’s Corps, was another Confederate who had good fortune in spite of his wounding and confinement at Gettysburg. As he convalesced in the parlor of Henry and Charlotte Picking’s farmhouse, he was treated “with a delicacy and kindness that I shall never cease to be grateful for.” Douglas later proclaimed, “God, every now and then, does make such people…and breathes into them his spirit of Christian charity, beneficence, and unpretentious nobility, to let the world know what a high plane he could lift mankind.” The major was a huge attraction for the couple’s four children, who referred to him as the “big Rebel.”12
Still, the ratio of doctors to patients at Gettysburg was about 1:150. One surgeon bitterly declared that “the failure to furnish a sufficient number of medical doctors….cost the country more good men than did the charge of any rebel brigade on that severely contested field.”13
The combination of the sheer volume of patients requiring care and transportation, along with supply difficulties and the rapid movement of the Army of the Potomac away from the battlefield, created an emergency situation that could not be immediately remedied.
Propitiously, help came from almost every quarter. For those who surveyed the carnage and human suffering caused by the battle, the universal quality of the disaster relief efforts was truly uplifting. “Benevolent societies, Sanitary and Christian Commissions, express companies, fire organizations, bands of generous people of all denominations and individuals came from great distances all came forward with their offerings, sympathy, and personal services.”14
As an even greater dilemma was the lack of doctors and nurses on hand, weeks elapsed before there were sufficient numbers to handle the staggering patient load.
Summoning up her courage, Gettysburg civilian Sarah Broadhead made a trip to the Lutheran Seminary with as much food as she could scrape together along with some old quilts and pillows. She was relieved to learn that sufficient quantities of provisions had begun to arrive. Medical attention was an entirely different matter, however.
Perceiving that most of the patients had still not had their wounds dressed, Sallie procured a basin of water and entered a room occupied by seven or eight wounded soldiers. One of the men directed her to a man lying on the floor who could not assist himself. Stooping over him, Sallie inquired about his wound. The patient pointed to his worm-infested leg.
Appalled, the volunteer nurse asked to see a doctor. When one appeared, she demanded to know how the men came to be in such a condition. The somber response was that not enough surgeons and attendants had been detailed to care for the wounded, and “that many would die from sheer lack of timely attendance.” Learning that the man with the injured leg would be among this number, Sallie resolved to write to his wife, but she feared it was too late, as he was sinking rapidly. “I am becoming more used to sights of misery,” Sallie wrote in her diary the night of July 7th.15
Like the Seminary and the Christ Lutheran Church, all the buildings of Pennsylvania College housed wounded soldiers. Inside the main edifice were between 500 and 700 Confederates. One former student who visited the campus after the battle was “heart sickened at the devastation and ruin that surrounded the college” and by the sight of the Rebel soldiers who “lay scattered about the floor in various states of filth and wounds.”16
Sarah Broadhead returned to the Seminary to dress wounds and distribute soup to the masses of patients in the upper floors. When she descended to the basement of the building, she was horrified by what she witnessed there. “Men, wounded in three and four places, not able to help themselves the least bit, lay almost swimming in water.” She and several other ladies secured some stretchers and evacuated nearly 100 men to the fourth floor. Mrs. Broadhead was particularly drawn to one poor fellow who had both legs and one arm taken off. May of these helpless patients would have surely perished in the subterranean flood had it not been for the quick action of Sallie and her companions. Later the fatigued volunteer marveled that not long ago she “would have fainted had I seen as much blood as I had seen today.”17"
The arrival of 40 trained nurses from the Army Nurse Corps and the erection of Camp Letterman east of town bettered the situation for the wounded and provided relief for the beleaguered civilians at Gettysburg. Still, many months passed before the wounded were well enough to leave Gettysburg. And the war continued. Perhaps the thoughts of those connected with the aftermath of Gettysburg and the summer and fall of 1863 were best expressed by Sarah Broadhead when she wrote retrospectively: “Had anyone suggested such sights as within the bound of possibility, I would have thought it madness.”18
Sources: Bellows, Henry. “The Field of Gettysburg.” The New York Times, July 16, 1873. Broadhead, Sarah. “Diary of a Lady”, copy, Adams County Historical Society. Coco, Gregory A. A Strange and Blighted Land, Gettysburg: The Aftermath of a Battle. Gettysburg, PA: Thomas Publications, 1995. “Not Killed”, The Gettysburg Compiler, July 27, 1863. Copy, Adams County Historical Society. Douglas, Henry Kyd. I Rode With Stonewall. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1940. Reprint, Atlanta, GA: Mockingbird Books, 1976. Duncan, Louis. The Medical Department of the United States Army in the Civil War. Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1910. Grace, William M. “Isaac Ridgeway Trimble; Indefatigable and Courageous.” Master’s Thesis, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, 1984. Horn, Henry E. Memoirs of Henry Eyster Jacobs. 3 vols. Huntingdon, PA: Church Management Service, Inc., 1974. The Lutheran Observer, “The Battlefield.” July 31, 1863, Philadelphia, PA. “The Great Battle of Gettysburg.” Lutheran and Missionary, July 16, 1863, Philadelphia, PA. Myers, William S., ed. “The Civil War Diary of General Isaac Ridgeway Trimble.” Maryland Historical Society, vol. XVII, no. 1, 1922. Patterson, Gerald. Debris of Battle: The Wounded of Gettysburg. Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books, 1997. Stille, Charles J. History of the United States Sanitary Commission. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1866. Wert, J. Howard. “In the Hospitals of Gettysburg, July 1863.” The Harrisburg Telegraph, July 2, 1907. Copy, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, PA.
End Notes:
1. Horn, vol 1, p. 61.
2. “The Great Battle at Gettysburg”, Lutheran and Missionary, July 16, 1863.
3. Ibid.
4. Wert, “In the Hospitals of Gettysburg”.
5. Bellows, “The Field of Gettysburg”, New York Times, July 16, 1863.
6. “The Battlefield”, The Lutheran Observer, July 31, 1863.
7. Coco, pp. 152-153. Duncan, p. 233.
8. Bellows, “The Field of Gettysburg”, New York Times, July 16, 1863.
9. Coco, pp. 216-217. “Not Killed”, The Gettysburg Compiler, July 27, 1863.
10. Myers, p. 12. Grace, p. 137.
11. Douglas, pp. 243-244.
12. Patterson, p. 211.
13. Stille, pp. 388-389.
14, Duncan, p. 198.
15. Broadhead, pp. 18-19.
16. “The Great Battle at Gettysburg” Lutheran and Missionary, July 16, 1863.
17. Broadhead, pp. 19-20.
18. Ibid. p. 24.
Michael Dreese is a Pennsylvania native and author who is a frequent visitor to Gettysburg. His expertise is on the first day’s battle and its aftermath. The above article comes from his book The Hospital on Seminary Ridge at the Battle of Gettysburg and appears by the permission of the author.
