The Tipton advertiser. [volume] (Tipton, Cedar Co., Iowa) 1856-1962, 1862-07-17

great anxiety to procure them for removal
and interment at their respective homes.
You may imagine the griei occasioned by
Gen. Haltck' $ order, excluding all civil
ians from the battle fields Of Pittsburgh
Landing, Hundreds of fathers and
mothers, and wives, and sisters, sons and
brothers, were fastening to this terrible
scene Of carnage, with the hope Of res
cuing their beloved ones wounded in
that awful battle or, il too late for this,
, to secure their remains for decent bur
ial. Every boat was crowded with these
messengers Of mercy, when the Generals
order met them at Cairo. No pen can
describe the bitter anguish this order oc-
casioned.
will mention one instance, as a sam
pls Of the whole. saw a young man
who had travelled long distance to Cairo
on his way to the battlefield to recover the
remains Of a dearly beloved and only
brother, who had been killed on the first
day of &c battle. lie had procured bis
pass and was aboard one of the Govern.
mcnt transports, then about to start from
Cairo to Pittsburgh Landing, in company
with about one hundred others, nearly all
of whom were on similar business, when
the order Of Gen. i!allcck was received,
directing the General in command of the
post to permit no more civilians to pass
stating that all the sick and wounded
had been sent below. The faithful Gen.
eral in command at Cairo was, Of course,
compelled to obey the order; and, atho'
deep y sympathiAing with these dissap-
pointed messengers of mercy to the sick
and wounded, cleared the boat. This
young man, learning that would be per-
mlttcd to pass, came to me with tears in
his eyes and begged me to intcrccdc in
his behalf. He said he had promised his
aged and widowed mother, who had cheer
fully given her son to the service and
who had bravely given his life to his
country on the battlefield, that he wo'd
bring back his body to her for decent
burial aud now it seemed 50 hard to 20
back without his remains, since they
were buried in a shallow trench, without
a coffin, in his clothes saturated with his
own litc'S blood-~anl it would soon be
tco late to identify him.
accompanied him to the captain of
one of the boats, end entrcatcd him to
find means of shipping him, as laborcr,
fireman, or in some capacity. The noble
old captain with biz tears in his eyes,
promised to do the best lie could under
the circumstances, and we separated -
In a few hours after our arrival at tnc
L. of ~
boats, | was grutilicd to see my young,
stranger friend, returning from the battle
field with his brother. What conmiugl,
ed emotions OF joy and grfcr must have
| filled his heart as he bore in his arms,
aboard the returning boat, the mangled
form Of the hearts treasure of his dear
old mother. May God bless him, and
the brave captain through whose goodness
the success was achieved.
The great abuses | witnessed in the
W Western army grow out of the careless
ness or incompetcncy Of surgeons in
charge of the sick and wounded Some
of the surgeons are devoted to their pa
tIents, and work faithfully day and night
for their welfare bu: too many of them
d
Of them seemed not to know how to make
out a requoton for medicine and stores
for the sick, and hundreds were conse-
qucntly suffering for the most common
necc>Sarics, within an hours drive of
supplies that would have been promptly
forwarded on a surgeons rcquisiton.
Some Of these surgeons seemed to me
to have grown hardhcartcd and ndtlcr,
cEt to human suffering In this connec,
ton may mention one practice adopted
by some rceimental surgeons, that made
ny heart ache almost every hour in the
day that was compelling the sick men,
pronounced to be hospital cases, to walk
back from the post hospitals to the hos
p'tal boats, not unfrcqucnty y several miles
from the cncampmcnts. have known
many to be ordered to walk back as far as
five or six miles, and seen them staggcr-
in~ along the road, tanting by the way,
without the slightest assistance from any
one. And when appealed to the Off
GERS to send them in ambulaDces, have /
received the reply that it was impossible
to spare the few ambulanccs at their dis I
posal for that purpose. Between the
Landing and Corinth, frequently found
poor sick soldiers lying by the roadside, i
who had been three or four days creeping
five or six miles in search of a hospital,
by order Of their surgeons, with nothing !
to eat but the common bacon and hard
bread which they carried for themselves
in their knapsacks; some of them who :
were unable to carry knapsacks being cn-
tlrcly destitute. In fact, coats, blankets,
and knapsacks, were to be seen every
where strcwn along the roads, which had
been abandoned by the sick men who be- /.
came too feeble to carry them.
Much If the sickness Of the Western
army is occasioned, | have not the slight
est doubt, by the character Of the food on
which the soldiers are compelled to live,
the want Of tents in which to sleep, and
the inccsaant hard work which the men .
are compelled to perform in erecting
bridges and Notifications, and making
roads, in hot climate to which they have
not been accustomed. heard more COM
plaiUiDg on account Of the hard bread on
which they were compelled to live, than
any other grievance. Even the sick, as
a general thing, were furnished with no
better. | could not perceive how it was
possible for them to subsist on such food
and regain their health.
hope tho new corps Of medical in
spoctors rec ntl. appointed by the Presi-
aeut, and the additional surgeons and as
Sistaat surgeons asked by the War De-
partmcnt, may be speedily sent to the
field and that they may prove to be eff