War from the Inside. Frederick L. Hitchcock

as possible the wounded, and a corps of surgeons were busily engaged in amputating limbs and dressing wounds. It should be understood that the accommodations were of the rudest character. A hospital tent had been hurriedly erected and an old house and barn utilized. Of course, I saw nothing of it or its work until the evening after the battle, when I went to see the body of our dead colonel and some of our Scranton boys who were wounded. Outside the hospital were piles of amputated arms, legs, and feet, thrown out with as little care as so many pieces of wood. There were also many dead soldiers—those who had died after reaching the hospital—lying outside, there being inside scant room only for the living. Here, on bunches of hay and straw, the poor fellows were lying so thickly that there was scarce room for the surgeon and attendants to move about among them. Others were not allowed inside, except officers and an occasional friend who might be helping. Our chaplain spent his time here and did yeoman service helping the wounded. Yet all that could be done with the limited means at hand seemed only to accentuate the appalling need. The pallid, appealing faces were patient with a heroism born only of the truest metal. I was told by the surgeons that such expressions as this were not infrequent as they approached a man in his "turn": "Please, doctor, attend to this poor fellow next; he's worse than I," and this when his own life's blood was fast oozing away.

      Most of the wounded had to wait hours before having their wounds dressed, owing to insufficient force and inadequate facilities. I was told that not a surgeon had his eyes closed for three days after this battle. The doctors of neighboring towns within reach came and voluntarily gave their services, yet it is doubtless true that hundreds of the wounded perished for want of prompt and proper care. This is one of the unavoidable incidents of a great battle—a part of the horrors of war. The rebel wounded necessarily were second to our own in receiving care from the surgeons, yet they, too, received all the attention that was possible under the circumstances. Some of their surgeons remained with their wounded, and I am told they and our own surgeons worked together most energetically and heroically in their efforts to relieve the sufferings of all, whether they wore the blue or the gray. Suffering, it has been said, makes all the world akin. So here, in our lines, the wounded rebel was lost sight of in the suffering brother.

      We remained on the battle-field until September 21, four days after the fight.

      My notes of this day say that I was feeling so miserable as to be scarcely able to crawl about, yet was obliged to remain on duty; that Lieutenant-Colonel Wilcox, now in command, and Major Shreve were in the same condition. This was due to the nervous strain through which we had passed, and to insufficient and unwholesome food. As stated before, we had been obliged to eat whatever we could get, which for the past four days had been mostly green field corn roasted as best we could. The wonder is that we were not utterly prostrated. Nevertheless, I not only performed all my duties, but went a mile down the Antietam creek, took a bath, and washed my underclothing, my first experience in the laundry business.

      We had been now for two weeks and more steadily on the march, our baggage in wagons somewhere en route, without the possibility of a change of clothing or of having any washing done. Most of this time marching in a cloud of dust so thick that one could almost cut it, and perspiring freely, one can imagine our condition. Bathing as frequently as opportunity offered, yet our condition was almost unendurable. For with the accumulation of dirt upon our body, there was added the ever-present scourge of the army, body lice. These vermin, called by the boys "graybacks," were nearly the size of a grain of wheat, and derived their name from their bluish-gray color. They seemed to infest the ground wherever there had been a bivouac of the rebels, and following them as we had, during all of this campaign, sleeping frequently on the ground just vacated by them, no one was exempt from this plague. They secreted themselves in the seams of the clothing and in the armpits chiefly. A good bath, with a change of underclothing, would usually rid one of them, but only to acquire a new crop in the first camp. The clothing could be freed of them by boiling in salt water or by going carefully over the seams and picking them off. The latter operation was a frequent occupation with the men on any day which was warm enough to permit them to disrobe for the purpose. One of the most laughable sights I ever beheld was the whole brigade, halted for a couple of hours' rest one hot day, with clothing off, "skirmishing," as the boys called it, for "graybacks." This was one of the many unpoetical features of army life which accentuated the sacrifices one made to serve his country.

      How did we ordinarily get our laundrying done? The enlisted men as a rule always did it themselves. Occasionally in camp a number of them would club together and hire some "camp follower" or some other soldier to do it. Officers of sufficient rank to have a servant, of course, readily solved the question. Those of us of lesser rank could generally hire it done, except on the march. Then we had to be our own laundrymen. Having, as in the above instance, no change of clothing at hand, the washing followed a bath, and consisted in standing in the running water and rubbing as much of the dirt out of the underwear as could be done without soap, for that could not be had for love or money; then hanging them on the limb of a tree and sitting in the sun, as comfortable as possible, whilst wind and sun did the drying. A "snap-shot" of such a scene would no doubt be interesting. But "snap-shots" unfortunately were not then in vogue, and so a picture of high art must perish. We could not be over particular about having our clothes dry. The finishing touches were added as we wore them back to camp.

      My diary notes that there were nine hundred and ninety-eight rebel dead gathered and buried from in front of the lines of our division. This line was about a quarter of a mile long, and this was mostly our work (our division), although Richardson's division had occupied part of this ground before us, but had been so quickly broken that they had not made much impression upon the enemy. Our division had engaged them continuously and under a terrific fire from eight o'clock A.M. until 12.30 P.M. It may be asked why during that length of time and under such a fire all were not annihilated. The answer is, that inaccuracy and unsteadiness in firing on both sides greatly reduce its effectiveness, and taking all possible advantage of shelter by lying prone upon the ground also prevents losses; but the above number of rebel dead, it should be remembered, represents, probably, not more than twenty to twenty-five per cent. of their casualties in that area of their lines; the balance were wounded and were removed. So that with nine hundred and ninety-eight dead it can be safely estimated that their losses exceeded four thousand killed and wounded in that area. This would indicate what was undoubtedly true, that we were in the very heart of that great battle.