So many atrocities come because of war, and the Battle of Gettysburg was no exception.  Many horrific experiences were faithfully documented by soldiers and civilians who endured those days in July 1863.  Here are just a few.

Mrs. Sarah Broadhead lived near the square on Chambersburg Street with her husband, Joseph, a railroad engineer, and their small daughter.  Joseph had been captured while at work when the Confederates invaded Pennsylvania and was fortunately released.  The Broadheads were among those who stayed for the duration of the conflict.  Sarah wrote in her diary on July 1, “For better security we went to the house of a neighbor and occupied the cellar…Whilst there a shell struck the house but mercifully did not burst…we know not what tomorrow will bring.¹

Jacob and Anna Aughinbaugh lived on Carlisle Street, the parents of several children.  Among them was nineteen-year-old Nellie, who worked in a millinery on the Square.  Nellie’s daughter, Louie Leeds, recalled her mother’s and grandparents’ story: “During the first day of battle a Union soldier was shot down right in front of Mother’s home.  Soon after, a Confederate came along and he searched the dead man’s clothes…my grandfather went out, rolled the body up in the blanket that belonged to the man, and laid it near the house.  In a few minutes, another Confederate came along, rolled the body out of the blanket and went through the pockets…Again grandfather went out and repeated his previous act.  This he had to do at intervals all day.”²

Jacob Cole was a 21-year-old private in the 57th New York Infantry, in General Samuel Zook's brigade.  He was desperately wounded on July 2.  “In the Wheatfield a shell exploded and shattered my right leg to pieces and killed two of my comrades, I lay there a few minutes unconscious, and when I came to I was surrounded by the enemy and an officer was standing over me with one foot on my wounded leg.  I pleaded with him to step off my wounded leg.  He said, in answer to my pleading, drawing his sword, ‘You D----d Yankee, I will cut your heart out, and as he raised his sword, a ball came from the direction of Little Round Top, cut him through the throat and he fell beside me dead.”³

Sarah Broadhead wrote, “Again the battle renewed with unearthly fury…it seemed as if the heavens and earth were crashing together.  We knew that with every explosion, and the scream of each shell, human beings were being hurried through excruciating pain, into another world, and that many more were torn, and mangled, and lying in torment worse than death.” ⁴

From the first day, field hospitals were created in private homes, churches, barns and buildings.  Mary McAllister lived across the street from the Christ Lutheran church on Chambersburg Street.  She hurried there to assist with the wounded.  She recalled, “They carried in the wounded in there as fast as they could.  We took the cushions off the seats and some of the officers came in and said, ‘Lay then in the aisles.’…after a while they carried in an awfully wounded one.  He was a fine officer.  They did not know who he was.  A doctor said to me, ‘Go bring some wine or whiskey or some stimulant!’  When I got outside I thought of Mr. Guyer near the church.  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘Mr. Guyer can you give me some wine?’…I put it under my apron and went over to the church with it.  They poured some of it into the officer’s mouth.  I never knew who he was, but he died.” ⁵

Nellie Aughinbaugh also commented on a makeshift hospital near her home.  “Over the store was a large hall, which was turned into a hospital.  When the surgeons amputated, they would throw arms and legs out of the windows into the yard to lay there in the sweltering sun of that hot July.  Sometime afterward, they came with horses and carts, shoveled the amputated parts up and hauled them away and buried them in long trenches.  We could not open our windows for weeks because of the terrible stench.” ⁶

Friday, July 3 proved to be the pivotal day of the battle, and the most horrific for all involved.  A Confederate participant in Pickett’s Charge later wrote of the preceding cannonade: “The earth seemed to rise up under the concussion, the air was filled with missiles, and the noise and din were so furious and overwhelming as well as continuous that one had to scream to his neighbor lying beside him to be heard at all.  The constant roar of nearly four hundred cannon on both sides, with the explosion of shells and frequently the bursting of a caisson wagon, was terrific beyond description.  Men could be seen, especially among the artillery, bleeding at both ears from concussion.” ⁷

A Union counterpart remembered: “When the Rebs had advanced about half way across the field a deadly fire of grape and canister was thrown into them, mowing them down like chaff.  But still on they came.  When within musket range the infantry rose up and gave them a withering shower and the gray lines melted away.” ⁸

An Ohio soldier recalled, “Above the turmoil of battle we could hear curses, shouts, shrieks, and could see hats, guns, legs, arms and mutilated carcasses hurled out into the less murky atmosphere.” ⁹

The men in blue also suffered greatly that day.  Ezra Simons of the 125th New York recalled, “Bravely standing behind that stone wall was the captain…who scorned the defense of even a low field-marking fence; with needless boldness faced death.  And death came.” ¹⁰

General Lee filled so many wagon trains with his wounded men that, when the Confederates left Gettysburg, the wagon train of Southern wounded stretched for seventeen miles.  General John Imboden of Virginia, the officer in charge of the wagons, claimed that the experience was among the worst of his life.  He remembered: “From nearly every wagon came cries and shrieks – O God why can’t I die?  O God, take me out of here and leave me to die!”   Along the way, many got their wish.  The road to Virginia from Gettysburg is littered beneath the sod with an untold number of human remains.¹¹

Although thousands of men in gray and butternut were taken from Gettysburg, thousands more were too severely wounded and were subsequently left behind.  Many Union soldiers were also left for the outnumbered civilians to attempt care before Union surgeons and nurses reached Gettysburg days later. 

Sarah Broadhead, who walked to the Lutheran Seminary to lend her aid, was shocked by what she saw.  “I procured a basin and water, and went to a room…I asked if anyone would like to have his wounds dressed?  Someone replied, ‘There is a man on the floor who cannot help himself, you would better see to him.’  Stooping over him, I asked for his wound, and he pointed to his leg.  Such a terrible sight I had never seen…His leg was all covered with worms.” ¹²

Mrs. Broadhead made another terrible discovery in the cellar of the Lutheran Seminary: “Men, wounded in three and four places, not able to help themselves…lay almost swimming in water…The way they happened to be in such a miserable place was this.  On the first day, during the battle, they had been taken to the building for shelter.  On Thursday and Friday the Rebels planted a battery just behind the hospital…the basement became the only safe place to which our wounded could betake themselves and the heavy rains, following the engagement, flooded the floor.” ¹³

Mrs. Broadhead and some of the nurses took stretchers to the basement and removed the men, which totaled over one hundred souls.  They were discovered on July 8, a week after being so severely wounded.  Not surprisingly, many of them did not survive.

One of the government nurses who traveled to Gettysburg to help with the myriad wounded, Sophronia Bucklin, walked over the battlefield shortly after her arrival.  What she saw distressed her.  “Battered canteens, cartridge-boxes, torn knapsacks, muskets twisted by cannon shot and shell, rusted tin cups, pieces of rent uniform, caps, belts perforated with shot and heaps of death’s leaden hail, marked the spot where men were stricken down in solid ranks…Boots, with a foot and leg putrefying within, lay beside the pathway, and ghastly heads too – over the exposed skulls of which insects crawled – while great worms bored through rotting eyeballs.  Astride a tree sat a bloody horror, with head and limbs severed by shells, the birds having banqueted on it, while the tattered uniform, stained with gore, fluttered dismally in the summer air.  Whole bodies were flattened against the rocks, smashed into a shapeless mass, as though thrown there by a giant hand, an awful sight in their battered and decaying condition.  The freshly turned earth on every hand denoted the pits, from many of which legs were thrust above the scant covering, and arms and hands were lifted up as though pleading to be assigned enough earth to keep them from the glare of day.” ¹⁴

As if the horrific sights, sounds, and putrid smells were not enough to greatly distress the people of Gettysburg, Nellie Aughinbaugh plaintively added: “Those poor fellows were somebodies’ sons.”  A soldier agreed.  He wrote, “ It was a fearful, ghastly sight to see men slaughtered so.” ¹⁵

Sources: Interview with Joanne (Joan) Thomas, the daughter of Major Thomas, on April 10, 2006. Additional information was provided by the Gettysburg POW Camp File, Adams County Historical Society (hereafter ACHS), and the Gettysburg Star & Sentinel, 27 October 1945. The Gettysburg Compiler, 09 February 1945. Evergreen Cemetery Records, Gettysburg, PA.