The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1863-10-10
What the Women in Georgia did
for our Wounded.

what the Women in Georgia did
for our Wounded.
We have been shown a number of letters
from private in an Illinois Regiment to
relatives in Des Moines county, giving a
very interesting and readable history of
the Straight Raid into Georgia last spring,
which is too long for our columns. The
force, composed of Ohio and Illinois troops,
under command of Col. Straight, passed
through Tuscumbia, a beautiful town in
Alabama, and thence into Georgia, chang
ing horses and foraging upon the coun-
try. After they got into Georgia the rebels
| mustered men and attacked Straight.
fighting him several severe battles. in
( which the rebels were severely handled
After the second or third of these engage
ments the writer of this letter was left in
charge of forty of our wounded, and
fell into the hands of the Secesh. The fol-
lowing extract from his narrative we print
TO show that there are good Union women
in Georgia, and that these women have
hearts and make sacrifices which a good
many loyal Northern people would be very
loath to do.
When morning came, May 1st, I was
astir as soon as / could, attending to the
wounded. l asked permission to bury our
dead, which the Captain in command
granted, but said he wanted me to see to
sending the wounded to the first battle
ground, which I did in old OK wagons,
| which they furnished, sending guard
along with every wagon; but they would
not let me go on the battle ground until II
O'Clock, until they had got all their dead
and wounded away. l then went, with
four others, and hunted over the field for
our dead, and found four. They were
stripped OF their coats, shoes and hats, and
had all their pockets tnrned out. Our
Captain had his finger cut to get ring off
it. We carried them up to the road and
| buried them, and then / started back to
where the wounded were. I go1 there at
sun down. There was joy in their faces
when they saw me, as the rebels that came
up before / had got there, had told them
| they had hung me and four others, after
making us dig our own graves. Their
wounds were dry and turned up with heat,
not having been wet, and they were strip
| ped of every blanket, both oil and wooden,
that was not bloody. All the provisions
were taken away that we had left them ex-
| cept some crackers. I was both tired and
hungry, bat went to work, and did not
stop even to eat anything until II O'Clock,
when had them as comfortable as the ma
ture Of things would admit. / then lay
down and slept from to 3 o'clock. and
then their cries for water awakened me,
and got up and kept their wounds wet
until daylight. But now what was / to do
for something for them to eat. / knew it
, was Of no use to appeal to the Rebs, for
they had robbed them of what they had,
and starvation stared me in the face, as
they swore they would not kill us but leave
us to starve to death, and it was the only
one of their threats that l feared. But be-
fore the sun was an hour high, as l was
setting on log with my head on my hands,
some one behind me laid "a light hand
on my shoulder. ] looked up, and there
was an old woman and her two grand
daughters, with their load of corn bread.
chickens, and sweet milk, with which they
had walked five miles and carried. You
can imagine my feelings; l will not at
tempt to describe them. / commenced
dividing it to the men who were hungry,
| (for wounded man, while his wound is
doing well, VIII eat as much as if he was
hard at work. and you could see the tears
make its way down the cheeks of the man
that a severe wound did not make groan;
and before they were well done with this,
there were other women that came with
more, until all had a hearty breakfast
This was the Sabbath, and I was on my
feet all day. / think there were at least
100 women there that day, and all brought
something, but the rebels took good deal
of it from them, but still there was plenty
left.
had forty-seven wounded, and three of
them died this day; two of them were shot
in the head, and the other through the
bowels. Of the rest there were three shot
in the bowels, who died afterwards, and
one through the spine; one had his left arm
off at the shoulder, and all the fingers Of
the right except the thumb; another had
his right arm off above the elbow; ano-
| Their his left thigh off close to his body;
another his right leg off below the knee;
two were shot through the lungs; five
| through the thighs; six through the legs;
three in the head and neck; one under the
spine; one through the shoulder, and the
rest only slightly. These all got well, or
are getting well.
| They had captured two of our Doctors,
but they hardly ever came near, and when
they did they would not look at or dress
or wounds, only as they were begged to,
until the boys got SO that they would not
ask them. The fact was, they were so bad
ly scared that they did not know how to
do anything.
Sabbath night l got about four hours
sleep at the root of a tree. The next day
was spent pretty much as the last, only
there were not so many women there, but
what did come, came loaded with things
for the wounded, SO that they had plenty
to eat. All that they suffered from was the
heat and flies in the day time, and the cold
at night. I would build fires around, but
still they suffered, as the sun was very hot
and the nights very cool; and then the
green flies were like swarm of bees, and
for all that could do the most of them
were fly blown, so that after I got them
into houses it was three days before got
the maggots out of them.
Anderson, Forests Adjutant General.
came and paroled us, and it was with hard
coaxing that got him to leave me the
slightly wounded to help to take care of the
others. ! got him to move back his men,
SO that the Union people could take the
wounded to their houses, which he did on
Monday evening. AS soon as it was known
on Tuesday, the women came there with
wagons to take those that could ride, and
the rest they helped to carry on hand
lighters, made with poles and inlaid with
bark and blanket; SO that by night had
them all in houses,
ACHIEVING A MUTUAL REsPEcT.--It is a
noticeable fact that this war has already
| both Mouth and SOnfh IF tho u