by Earl J. Hess
The Confederates had no opportunity to recover trophies from the battlefield. Having retreated from the ground, they had to content themselves with the praise of their comrades and officers. The Richmond government had earlier allowed badges of honor to be awarded individual soldiers based on the votes of their comrades as a way to reward valor on the battlefield. Several men in the 2nd Arkansas Mounted Rifles (dismounted) were voted such badges by their fellow soldiers, “but we never received them,” complained Pvt. John W. Leeper of Company G. He was not alone; virtually all Confederate soldiers voted to appear on the Confederacy’s Roll of Honor failed to receive their awards. The Richmond government did not find the time or money to fulfill its promise to the soldiers.23
In addition to trophies, the Federals finished cleaning up the battlefield by collecting abandoned weapons and equipment. Dropped by fallen soldiers and sometimes by retreating Confederates who were not injured, rifle muskets littered the ground. The guns were piled up for collection by ordnance officers, who also gathered all other government property left on the field. Blake’s brigade of Newton’s division collected more than seventy-five muskets on its sector. Samuel Merrill’s 70th Indiana collected 168 abandoned small arms for Harrison’s ordnance officer from July 21 to 23. Altogether, the Army of the Cumberland recovered 794 weapons during the month of July 1864.24
The capture of enemy soldiers also was seen as a major sign of victory on the battlefield, and Thomas reported 360 prisoners taken on July 20. Of that number, 122 (or exactly one-third of the total number) had been wounded before they were taken captive. This was a comparatively small proportion of the 2,722 prisoners and deserters received by the Army of the Cumberland during the month of July 1864. The fact that only 13.2 percent of the month’s haul of Confederate personnel resulted from the battle of Peach Tree Creek (the only battle Thomas’s men fought in July) indicates that a large number of deserters had given themselves up to Thomas’s troops during that pivotal month of the Atlanta campaign.25
Many of the captured Confederates were eager to talk to the Federals about any number of topics. They spoke freely of Hood’s battle plan to drive Thomas’s army toward the Chattahoochee River and revealed that Hood made it clear to everyone he intended to fight “with ‘guns instead of spades and picks.’” A Rebel officer told Joseph B. Newbury of the 79th Ohio that his comrades “thought they would come out . . . and gather a few Acorns,” referring to the corps badge of Palmer’s Fourteenth Corps. But the Rebels hit Hooker’s Twentieth Corps instead. While these conversations relayed mostly accurate views from the Confederate side of the contending lines, other prisoners reported nothing but rumors. The idea that Hood personally led the attack at Peach Tree Creek and was killed “leading a charge” was widespread among the Rebel prisoners. It probably says more about what many Confederate soldiers wished had happened than anything else.26
The wounded men who littered the field at Peach Tree Creek became an object of dedicated work for many Federal surgeons and attendants. Details used blankets as well as stretchers to collect them from the ground and transport them to field hospitals behind Union lines. Some of those hospitals were close by and others some distance away. Geary’s division hospital was located two and a half miles from the fight because his chief surgeon, H. Earnest Goodman, had to take care of many sick soldiers. Goodman did position one section of his hospital only half a mile from the battlefield where the most severe cases were treated. He ran six operating tables altogether in the two sections of his hospital, and they were used constantly until 1 A.M. of July 21. In Williams’s division, surgeons took possession of the vacant cabins located near the Union line to treat the injured. The three division hospitals in Hooker’s Twentieth Corps admitted a total of 1,051 Federal wounded and 106 Confederate wounded during and after the battle of Peach Tree Creek. Of that number, 169 (or 16.0 percent) received amputations. An unknown number of Union soldiers were so slightly injured that they did not bother to report to a hospital for treatment. Andrew Jackson Johnson of the 70th Indiana “was struck by a spent ball on the thigh, making a very sore place,” but he nursed it privately.27
Given that most of the Federal hospitals were from one to two miles from the scene of conflict, orders went out to move them closer. Surg. William Harrison Githins of the 78th Illinois in Davis’s division had his hands full with caring for the numerous wounded resulting from Dilworth’s battle with Reynolds on July 19. But he received orders to move his hospital closer to the division late on July 20. It proved impossible to do so that day, so preparations were begun before dawn of July 21. Githins and another surgeon worked nearly all day dressing the wounds of 160 men, then supervised their loading onto ambulances and sent them forward “load after load until late in the night” of July 21. They moved the hospital equipment and supplies the next day. Githins was stressed and exhausted: “How we long for the slaughter to stop,” he wrote his wife, “just think of the wagon loads of arms and legs we have had to take off.”28
Githins’s experience was not unique, for many field hospitals in the Army of the Cumberland were on the move in an effort to snuggle the care facilities closer to the fighting line. In addition, as soon as wounded men were able to travel, they were shipped northward. Thomas’s Department of the Cumberland operated a general field hospital at Vinings’ Station near Marietta, and that was the arrival point of these injured men for a temporary stay until they were either transported farther north in the hospital system or returned to duty.29
For several days following the battle, these field hospitals gave the appearance not only of individual suffering but of general chaos as thousands of needy men crowded a small and overworked medical staff. Henry Perrin Mann, a teamster who wandered into a Twentieth Corps field hospital, was stunned by the experience. “The sights I saw I never want to see again,” he confided to his diary, “the ground for nearly half an acre was covered thick with wounded waiting for their turn to have their wounds dressed.” Rice C. Bull visited his comrades of the 123rd New York in Williams’s division hospital to find that some 500 men were lying injured on the ground waiting for attention. Rufus Mead of the 5th Connecticut, another teamster whose train was located near a hospital, reported that some of the many wounded men waiting for the doctor were “crazy & raving and other[s] suffering all that mortals can.” The surgeons worked as fast as they could, and the pile of amputated limbs began to grow, according to Mead. He noticed a terrible odor as well. “Flies were flying around in swarms and maggots were crawling in wounds before the Drs could get time to dress them.” Mead thought this was the worst exhibition of human suffering he ever witnessed in the army.30
The quality of care offered by Federal surgeons created a small controversy. It was true that, not anticipating a battle, the doctors of Ward’s division were unprepared for the influx of wounded men. Surg. William Grinstead had only one section of the division hospital near the battlefield because the other sections were still located at Buck Head, where 250 sick men had to be attended. Even so, the section near Ward’s division was taken by surprise when the firing started. For Surg. John W. Foye, Hooker’s medical director, “the want of system was painfully apparent” in Grinstead’s establishment. Somehow surgeons in Newton’s division heard of the trouble and offered their help. Foye was grateful, as was Grinstead, but it was obvious to Foye that “much suffering would have ensued” if not for that timely assistance. The other sections of Ward’s division hospital reached the battlefield area on July 21, enabling Grinstead to put all of his wounded under shelter.31
As far as the infantry was concerned, the battle of Peach Tree Creek was fought at close range, and the wounded suffered “generally severe” injuries as a result. But the medical staff saved the overwhelming majority of the troops brought in to their hospitals. Grinstead and Goodman reported that only about 6 percent of the wounded entrusted to their care in Ward’s and Geary’s division hospitals died of their injuries. Including the wounded of July 20, Geary’s me
dical staff treated a total of 295 men for combat injuries during the month of July. Of that number, sixteen (5.4 percent) died of their wounds. Surg. Edwin Hutchinson of the 137th New York thought the wounded of Peach Tree Creek “were better and more quickly cared for than at any Battle heretofore.”32
The Confederate wounded also were retrieved from the battlefield, although some reports indicate that many of them received secondary attention. A man in the 70th Indiana wrote that some of the Rebels lay on the field all night before stretcher details could get them into the hospitals. A man of the 3rd Wisconsin wandered through the woods on July 27 looking for blackberries and came across two Confederates who had lain in the brush for a week. One was dead and the other barely alive with maggots crawling in his wounds. The sufferer “was so near gon that he did not know eney thing,” wrote William H. Carrier. The close-range firing created many severe injuries. In fact, Grinstead reported that the Rebel wounded he treated in Ward’s division hospital mostly had multiple bullet wounds, and six of them died within hours of admission, while another thirty died before he could transport them farther north. It is true that those Confederates who could not get away from the field tended to be the ones most severely injured; their rate of recovery was far lower than that of only slightly wounded men.33
A remarkable discovery was in store for many Federals as they gathered and tended wounded Confederates. Judson L. Austin of the 19th Michigan was a member of one detail scouring the battlefield when he “found a female dressed in mens clothes & a cartradge [sic] box on her side when we picked her up. She was shot in the breast & through the thy & was still alive and as gritty as any reb I ever saw.” When later telling the story to his wife in a letter, Austin admonished her never to think of doing such a thing. “I hope our women will never be so foolish as to go to war or get to fighting,” he told her.34
Stories about women soldiers circulated freely through Federal ranks after the battle. Watson C. Hitchcock of the 20th Connecticut heard that not one but three women “all dressed in soger clothes” were found injured on the battlefield and had been brought into Geary’s, Ward’s, and Newton’s division hospitals. The woman that Ward’s staff treated had her leg amputated and later died, but the others apparently survived. Stephen F. Fleharty of the 102nd Illinois relayed a rumor that one female soldier, who endured the pain of a broken ankle with heroism, admitted she had been in the field for twenty-eight months “and was not sorry that she had enlisted.” Another report circulated that a woman soldier had been found dead on the field, while yet more rumors indicated that two women soldiers were captured by the Federals at Peach Tree Creek.35
Many of Hooker’s medical personnel devoted superb attention to the wounded found on the battlefield. Andrew J. Gilson, assistant surgeon of the 5th Connecticut, stayed on the field during the battle to dress the wounds of regimental members before they were taken to the field hospital. He was widely known to be the only surgeon in Knipe’s brigade to do so, and his admirers wrote a letter to their hometown newspaper a few days later to sing his praises. Surg. Jesse Brock of the 66th Ohio suffered an injury while operating on wounded in the field hospitals. He accidently pricked his finger “on some exposed bone.” When it became gangrenous it had to be amputated.36
Surgeons relied heavily on attendants to support their work in the field hospitals, and normally they were simply detailed from the regiments to this duty. Edward P. Failing of the 149th New York took this assignment seriously as he worked to administer anesthetics to the wounded of Peach Tree Creek. “Have been busy giving chloroform,” he confided to his diary on July 21. “Administered chor to a rebel, had his leg taken off, dressed another who had his head badly used.” Failing worked “very hard” for ten hours on the evening and night of July 20; his duties continued without let up on the 21st, but he took a break the next day to compile a list of casualties in the regiment and “then commenced dressing the wounded,” a daily chore for the hospital attendants.37
Some of the medical attendants preferred to work on the battlefield. Marcus Daniels of the 19th Michigan had normally helped Surg. George Martin Trowbridge in previous engagements, but on July 20 he wanted to stay on the field because both the regimental surgeons were busy in the hospitals. Trowbridge allowed him to do this, but Daniels paid for his dedication with a serious bullet wound in the foot.38
Trowbridge left behind a detailed record of his actions, thoughts, and feelings in a series of letters to his wife. Soon after the opening shots were fired, he reported to Ward’s division hospital, and by dusk he was helping to care for 250 men. “Used the knife till 31/2 am this morn,” he wrote on July 21, “then only rested for a little to give attendants time to rest. Tis enough to make the heart ache to see the mangled bodies.”39
Trowbridge devoted the morning of July 22 mostly to operating on the Confederate wounded, and “I of course enjoyed thinking when amputating a leg had finished the soldiering of a reb.” He was struck by the seriousness of the wounds suffered by the captured Confederates and feared they would have less chance of survival than the more lightly wounded Federals he saw. Trowbridge continued to work away at his operating table all day of July 22 and into the night to nearly complete the procedures necessary on all the Union and Confederate wounded in his hospital. He had about 110 severe cases to worry about. Moreover, “the filth, flies & maggots tis terrible, 24 hours is sufficient to have a wound filled with life.”40
Under the stress of these days Trowbridge both enjoyed his work and was appalled by it. He considered standing for hours at an operating table and then wading through dirt and maggots as “a military necessity.” Throughout it all he was expected “to be jovial & happy; cheering the suffering, sustaining the weak, healing the wounded.” Privately he worried because all the men he worked on would soon be shifted north, and there would be no way he could learn what role his care played in their recovery. While Trowbridge thought his colleagues had performed prodigious feats to care for the hundreds of injured men so well and so quickly, he was left with a sense of emptiness because there was no opportunity to follow through with subsequent care to bring the torn body back to health.41
Trowbridge had ample opportunity to observe the enemy in his hospital, and his observations began with a captured Confederate surgeon who was told to care for his own wounded. The doctor did not impress Trowbridge, who considered him “rather an inferior appearing man.” He had a more generous appraisal of the Rebel rank and file as they filtered into his hospital and endured operations on the table. Trowbridge noted that their wounds tended to be more severe, that they usually were taken off the field later than the Federal wounded, and that flies had infested their open flesh far more thoroughly than that of the Union men in the hospital. They seemed to have been living better than Sherman’s men because of shorter supply lines and more ready access to home. Trowbridge saw no indications of scurvy among the wounded Rebels, while he was well aware that the condition, brought on by a deficiency of vitamin C, was evident in many units of Sherman’s army group. “There is a general healthy fresh appearance” among the Confederates, “indicative of plenty & good variety of food, & all say have plenty: & are well clothed with homespun quality of course linen made by the pilgrim mothers; more durable & better for summer than our dress.” Trowbridge was, in short, impressed by many aspects of the enemy’s condition in the summer of 1864.42
Trowbridge’s junior colleague in the 19th Michigan was Asst. Surg. John Bennitt, who also kept his wife informed of developments in the hospitals of Ward’s division. Five days after the fight at Peach Tree Creek, Bennitt had his fill of Civil War combat. “A Battle is a terrific affair, and may God grant that it be not my lot to be under the necessity of participating in any manner in another.” When the engagement started, Bennitt was searching for a suitable place to establish a hospital as close as possible to Hooker’s line. He therefore set up a temporary aid station “behind a bank that was sheltered from their bullets.” He finally moved everyone
back to the division hospital, where he also amputated the mangled limbs of several captured enemy soldiers.43
Confederate medical personnel were busy with their own injured troops on July 20 and for days after the battle. Seventy men of Gist’s Brigade in Maney’s Division were treated in a hospital located between the battlefield and Atlanta, while at least some houses inside the city were taken over by Confederate doctors. The home of Annie Robson was chosen, and one of her neighbors, Sarah Conley Clayton, remembered for the rest of her life the horrible groans coming from the operating tables set up on the front porch and in the yard.44
In Loring’s Division hospital, Dr. P. F. Whitehead slaved away with the wounded all night of July 20. He stopped for a break at 6 A.M. the next day to drink coffee and scribble a short letter to his friend Irene Cowan. “The wounded are still being brought in from the field,” he reported before taking up the scalpel once again. Surg. James Madison Brannock of the 4th and 5th Tennessee in Strahl’s Brigade, Maney’s Division also worked all night of July 20. At dawn the next day three wounded Federal officers arrived at his hospital, and Brannock took good care of them. One struck him as “a handsome young Lieutenant with his leg badly shattered.” The Federal officer joked with Brannock. “Well, Doctor, I have got to Atlanta at last! . . . But how differently from what I expected! I little thought to reach here only to die!” Brannock amputated his leg on July 21, and the next day the lieutenant passed away.45
Brannock compiled a detailed account of the wounds suffered by members of the 12th and 47th Tennessee in Vaughan’s Brigade (commanded by Col. Michael Magevney Jr.) of Maney’s Division. Of twenty-seven men, five (18.5 percent) suffered amputation of limbs and two (7.4 percent) died of their injuries. One man, Pvt. Robert F. Brown, displayed four slight wounds on different parts of his body. While twelve men (44.4 percent) were listed as having severe wounds, only five (18.5 percent) had slight injuries. This proportion seems atypical; normally the number of slight injuries heavily outnumbered the serious wounds. In fact, if those statistics were reversed, they would seem to be more in keeping with the norm.46