by Diana Loski

The following remembrance comes from Carl Shurz (1829-1906), a Prussian immigrant and friend of Abraham Lincoln who was promoted a Major General before Gettysburg in the Army of the Potomac. He served in the Union Eleventh Corps during the battle.   

The wounded were carried to the farmyards behind our lines. The houses, the barns, the sheds, and open barnyards were crowded with moaning and wailing human beings and still an unceasing procession of stretchers and ambulances was coming in from all sides to augment the number of sufferers. A heavy rain set in during the day…and large numbers had to remain unprotected in the open, there being no room left under roof. I saw long rows of men lying under the eaves of buildings, the water pouring down on their bodies in streams. Most of the operating tables were placed in the open where light was best, some of them partially protected against the rain by tarpaulins or blankets stretched upon poles. There stood the surgeons, their sleeves rolled up to the elbows, their bare arms as well as their linen aprons smeared with blood…around them pools of blood and amputated arms or legs in heaps, sometimes more than man-high…As a wounded man was lifted on the table, often shrieking with pain as the attendants handled him, the surgeon quickly examined the wound and resolved upon cutting off the injured limb. Some ether was administered, and the body put in position in a moment. The surgeon snatched his knife from between his teeth…wiped it rapidly once or twice across his blood-stained apron, and the cutting began. The operation accomplished, the surgeon would look around with a deep sigh, and then – NEXT!

Carl Schurz, The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz, vol. 3, pp. 39-40