Fifteen Months in Dixie; Or, My Personal Experience in Rebel PrisonsDay, W. W. (William Worthy)
History
Fifteen Months in Dixie; Or, My Personal Experience in Rebel Prisons
Day, W. W. (William Worthy)
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Prisoners and prisons
Seating Patchin and Hand by a fire, I procured water and having
satisfied our thirst, I proceeded to dress their wounds. We sat up all
night, not having any blankets, and all night long the shrieks and
groans of wounded and dying men pierced our ears.
In the morning I went to a rebel surgeon and procured a basin, a sponge,
some lint and bandages, and after dressing the wounds of my patients, I
took such of the wounded rebels in my hands as my skill, or lack of
skill, would permit me to handle.
I worked all the forenoon relieving my late enemies and received the
thanks and “God bless you, Yank,” from men who had, perhaps the day
before, used their best skill to kill me. Who knows but that a bullet
from my own gun had laid one of those men low?
In the afternoon those of the wounded Union prisoners who could not walk
were placed in wagons and those who could, under guard and we were taken
to McLaw’s Division hospital, on Chickamauga Creek.
On the way to the hospital we passed over a portion of the battlefield.
While marching along I heard the groans of a man off to the right of the
road, I called the guard’s attention to it and together we went to the
place from whence the sound proceeded; there, lying behind a log, we
found a wounded Union soldier. He begged for water saying he had not
tasted a drop since he was wounded on the 19th, two days before. He was
shot in the abdomen and a portion of the caul, about four inches in
length, protruded from the wound. I gave him water, and the guard helped
me to carry him to the wagon. His name was Serg. James Morgan, of some
Indiana Regiment, the 46th, I think. He lived five days. I cared for him
while he lived. One morning I went to see him and found him dead. I
searched his pockets and found his Sergeant’s Warrant and a photograph
of his sister, with her name and post-office address written upon it.
These I preserved during my fifteen months imprisonment and sent to her
address after I arrived in our lines. I received a letter from her
thanking me for preserving those mementoes of her brother; also for the
particulars of his death. I also received a letter from Capt.
Studebaker, Morgan’s brother-in-law, and to whose company Morgan
belonged, dated at Jonesboro, N. C., May 1865, in which he said that my
letter gave the family the first news of the fate of Morgan.
We arrived at the hospital just before night and I proceeded to make my
patients as comfortable as possible. There were at this place 120
wounded Union soldiers besides several hundred wounded Confederates. Our
quarters were the open air. These wounded men lay scattered all around,
in the garden, the orchard, by the roadside, any and every where.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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