Today in History:

493 Series I Volume XXV-I Serial 39 - Chancellorsville Part I

Page 493 Chapter XXXVII. THE CHANCELLORSVILLE CAMPAIGN.

with stretchers, to accompany the division in its march toward Franklin's old crossing.

On teh morning of the 29th, I followed them, parking on the ground selected by Lieutenant-Colonel Morford, corps quartermaster.

About noon of the 30th, in compliance with orders, I detailed two ambulances and a guard, under the charge of a sergeant, to follow the division to Chancellorsvile, via the United States Ford, and as soon as the road was clear I took my train to that ford and parked near the pontoon bridge on the evening of teh 1st, being positively forbidden, by a personal order from Colonel Ingalls, chief quartermaster of the army, from crossing with my train until further orders, which Colonel [William E.] Morford assured me should be sent as soon as its services should be required.

On the morning of the 2nd (Saturday), I crossed personally, saw the position of the division and its hospital, and made such arrangements as I could for efficient service in the expected battle, both with Dr. [John S.] Jamison, chief surgeon of the division, and with the corps ambulance officer, Lieutenant J. R. Moore.

On the morning of the 3rd, I crossed the river again, and, finding the action had commenced, sent an order to my brigade lieutenant to send me at once the remainder of the stretcher-men, and to get the ambulances over the river and to the front as soon as possible.

Upon my reaching the Chancellor house, I found my division lying there in line of battle, and was told that the enemy occupied their camp of last night, and the ground over which they had been fighting. My stretcher-men, nearly exhausted, had not been able, after leaving the immediate field of action, to find any hospital of this division nearer than the river, and had, when other surgeons were not kind enough to volunteer to attend to them, been compelled to carry their wounded to the Rappahannock, and in some instances to this side of it. My stretcher men left in camp arrived at the white house about noon, and I was immediately ordered by Dr. Sim, medical director of the corps, to remove the wounded from a hospital to the left of the white house, in a hollow, to the brick house near the pontoons. This I succeeded in effecting about 1 a.m. of the 4th.

Shortly after sunrise of the 4th, I was detailed by Lieutenant Moore, corps ambulance officer, to superintend the removal of teh wounded from the brick house to Potomac Creek. This took nearly all the ambulances in the corps. I also sent this morning, as far as I had them, fresh guards to relieve those already worn down, and supplied them with stretchers in place of those broken or lost.

On that night I visited the division hospital, re-established near an old saw-mill, and saw all the regiments of the division I could find, and ascertained there were but 7 of our wounded within our lines that we could find or get information of, who were removed and their wounds dressed.

The next morning, at the request of Dr. Letterman, I made an estimate of the number of Third Corps wounded in our possession, and received from him an order for 135 ambulances, which, in addition to the few of ours on hand, sufficed to remove all of our own men to Potomac Creek.

At the time of the retreat, I do not think that a single Third Corps wounded man was left who could have been obtained. I was so informed by the surgeons in charge at the time. I believe that every man of my division wounded Saturday afternoon and evening was brought by my men to the field surgeons and his wounds dressed. That night


Page 493 Chapter XXXVII. THE CHANCELLORSVILLE CAMPAIGN.