Visiting Antietam's Hospitals

The week after the Battle of Antietam, two Pennsylvanians, Ephraim B. McCrum and Henry C. Dern, both editors and proprietors of the Altoona Tribune, journeyed south into Maryland. Their intentions were to visit the camps of their local regiments, touch base with the boys, and to report back on their findings. “We were told by those who had preceded us that we obtained a sight of the tail end only,” they stated. “If that be so, we have no desire to see the whole animal.”

          The pair first went to Hagerstown, and on Tuesday morning September 23, 1862, they secured a wagon and set out for Sharpsburg. “Nothing worthy of special attention attracted our attention until we ascended a hill about two miles this side of the battlefield,” they wrote. “Here our olfactory organs informed us very perceptibly that we were in the region of decaying animal matter. On every rise of ground thereafter we were greeted with the same stench, yet we could see no marks of the battle. Thus, we passed on until we arrived at the second toll gate which is on the extreme left of the line of battle, the line extending from thence beyond Sharpsburg being some 4-1/2 miles in length.”

This detail from the Elliott map of graves at Antietam illustrates the observations of our Pennsylvania editors concerning the Miller cornfield. "The graves of the Union soldiers who had been buried where they fell gave to every field the appearance of a vast cemetery," they noted. "In all directions lay the dead horses, some of which had been partly burned, but the task of thus destroying them was evidently too great for the force detailed for that purpose and they had been left to the elements and the buzzards. The salubrity of the atmosphere in this locality was in consequence anything but agreeable and we did not tarry long." 

Here we found the first evidences of battle, in the limbs of trees cut off by artillery, and trees, fence rails, and posts perforated with musket balls.  Passing on a mile further, we came to the noted cornfield, which it is said, dead Rebels lay as thick as cornstalks after the battle. For the truth of this we cannot vouch as all the dead had been buried ere we arrived. Suffice it to say, however, the number of graves and the manner in which they were piled into them (from 100-400 in a trench) were almost sufficient to confirm it.

On this ground we, for the first timed realized the destructiveness of war where large armies are engaged on either side. All we had previously imagined sank into insignificance when the reality met our view. Such a sight cannot be described. It must be seen to be comprehended. Fences, both rail and stone, were leveled to the ground. Fields of corn were tread into the dust and the whole face of the country resembled a wide wagon road. The fields and woods were strewn with torn hats, coats, pants, shoes, canteens, haversacks, cartridge boxes, muskets (good and broken), broken gun carriages, etc.

The graves of the Union soldiers who had been buried where they fell gave to every field the appearance of a vast cemetery. In all directions lay the dead horses, some of which had been partly burned, but the task of thus destroying them was evidently too great for the force detailed for that purpose and they had been left to the elements and the buzzards. The salubrity of the atmosphere in this locality was in consequence anything but agreeable and we did not tarry long. On every part of the field might be picked up unexploded shells, cannon, and musket balls. Conical shells, very much resembling the old-fashioned clock weights, appeared to have been most extensively used in this engagement.

Known as the "stone house hospital," the Samuel Poffenberger Farm after Antietam presented a scene which "beggars all description. Every room in the house, the porticos front and rear, the barn floor and mows, all the stables underneath the barn, the wagon shed, and around the straw and grain stacks were crowded with the wounded," our editors observed.  (Photo courtesy of John Banks) 

From this field we passed to the first hospital in the rear of the hospital known as the stone house hospital. [Samuel Poffenberger Farm] Here the scene beggars all description. Our own and the Rebel wounded were thrown together promiscuously. Five of the Rebel wounded who had died the previous night were carried out just as we arrived. Every room in the house, the porticos in front and rear, the barn floor and mows, all the stables underneath the barn, the wagon shed, and around the straw and grain stacks were crowded with the wounded, many of whom were already beyond the reach of medical skill and were now struggling in the last agonies of death. Among this number were men wounded in every conceivable manner, with shot and shell in the head, body, arms, and legs. What astonished us the most was that they were still alive.

The Secesh wounded and the prisoners who were attending them were a very sorry looking set of mortals. Scarcely any of them had passable clothing, and many of them had not sufficient to cover their nakedness. It seemed to us that they all looked alike: they are all thin in the flesh and sallow complected, and almost everyone we spoke to admitted they did not get enough to eat previous to their entrance into Maryland. Scarcely two Rebels we saw were dressed alike. Their hats and caps are of every color and quality and their pants ditto. Their coats were of cotton and mostly two colors, light gray and walnut hence the appellations of “graybacks” and “butternuts.”

Unidentified soldier of
Co. D, 17th Virginia

A few bear the impress of intelligence, but most of them are evidently the poorer classes of the South who at home are not as much respected as the slaves. Some of them were Northern men who had settled in the South and when the war broke out were compelled to go into the Southern army. All such expressed the intention of going so far North on recovering from their wounds that Jeff Davis would not see them again until the war was over. Others again were full-blooded “chivalry” and were not sparing in their denunciations of the abolitionists whom they vowed to fight to the last. One old man, a captain from Mississippi, who was wounded in the arm and the knee, said that he considered it his duty, in case he got well, to take his place in the Rebel ranks and try us again. No kindness or attention on the part of Union men made any impression on the minds of the bigoted Southerners.

From the hospital above mentioned, we passed to the once in which most of the wounded of Captain Gardner’s company [Captain Joseph W. Gardner, Co. K, 125th Pennsylvania] were placed. Here we found the house, barn, wagon shed, and every available spot filled with the wounded. After looking up our acquaintances and doing all in our power for them, we walked through the house and barn examining the different cases. We had heard soldiers say that by constantly mingled with and attending to the wounded, they lost that feeling for them which they experienced at first sight. We thought this impossible, but two hours among them convinced us it was possible. Sights which first made us sick and compelled us to turn away we could now look upon without a shudder.

A gunshot wound in the arm or leg was apparently of no account; we found one who had been shot through the head just below the temples. It would appear impossible that a man thus wounded should live, yet this man after having his wound dressed was walking about the barn, talking with his companions and seemingly giving it little attention. Another man who had been struck with a piece of shell which carried away one side of his face and part of his skull. He was still alive but evidently could not last long. A Rebel has received a bullet wound which cut both eyes and carried away part of his nose. Though apparently strong, his case seemed to us utterly hopeless. A piece of shell had carried away the roof of the mouth of a Union soldier; in his condition it was impossible for him to take nourishment in any other than a liquid state, and it was hard to think that he must die of starvation if not from the effects of the wound. Another case was that of a young volunteer from Massachusetts; his thigh had ben badly fractured so close to his body that amputation could not be performed and the surgeon gave it as his opinion that his life could not possibly be saved.


Our Pennsylvania editors found 700 wounded men in and around the "brick house hospital" which was most certainly the Widow Susan Hoffman House and Farm, called the Hoffman House Hospital in period literature. The home still stands near Keedysville Road but is private property so do not trespass. (Photo courtesy of John Banks) 

From this hospital we proceeded across the country some two miles to another styled the brick house hospital [Widow Susan Hoffman Farm] where our lamented young friend Fred C. Ward [Co. K, 125th Pennsylvania] had died. Here we found some 700 wounded, occupying as before every nook and corner about the house and barn, Two or three surgeons were busily engaged in amputating arms and legs, trepanning skulls, etc.

We witnessed an operation on a man who had been struck with a piece of shell on the top of the head, breaking the skull. He had lain insensible from the time he received the strike on Wednesday the 17th until the time the operation was performed on Tuesday the 23rd. As soon as the fractured bone was taken out and the depression removed from the brain, consciousness returned and it took four men to hold him until the wound was dressed. When the surgeon had finished and the man was lifted from the table, he walked several steps and appeared perfectly rational. The surgeon considered his case quite encouraging.

For more reading about conditions after the Battle of Antietam, please check out these posts:

"The wailing sound dies but slowly in my ears."

"Elizabeth Piper and the Battle of Antietam." 

"Our neighborhood is one vast graveyard: A civilian account of the carnage of Antietam." 


   

Source:

“Visit to the Antietam Battlefield and Hospitals,” Altoona Tribune (Pennsylvania), October 2, 1862, pg. 2


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