Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1864-04-29
Remarkable Tcnacity Of Life.

Lieutenant NJ. NJ. Kistler, formerly Of the
Forty-eighth Pennsylvania Volunteers, who
still survives, and is commanding company
of the Invalid Corps, was pronounced by the
surgeons who examined him after the battle,
as he Law among the desd-himSclf almost as
dead apparently as they-mortally wounded,
and he was passed by at the time, and the
attention of the surgeons was devoted to
others, for whom it was thought there might
be chance of recovery. The fortunes of
the day seemed to yacillate in the balance as
the massive columns surged back and forth,
and for time the field was in possession Of
the rebels; again our brave fellows drove
back the rebel columns, and took the ground
where our wounded men were lying wclterlng
in their gore and in the evening the brave
and undaunted lieutenant was carried from
the field by our own men and laid in an old
barn without blanket or overcoat. His clothes
on his right side, from his shoulder down
into his boot, being saturated with blood from
his wound, were cold and stiff. II was at
Antietam he was wounded, by ball enter
ing his right shoulder in such way as to
carry his epaulctte into the wound, and
part of it, with the ball entering the right
lobe of the lungs. The wound was pr0bcd
by no less than eight or nine surgeons, three
or four at I time. They succeeded in ex'
tracing from the wound the wire, four or
five inches in length, belonging 10 the shoui-
der strap, and all agreed that there were
fractured pieces Of bones necessary to be eX-
tractcd, but they neither removed them nor
dressed the wound, considering the case
hopeless one. The wounded lieutenant alone
believed his recovery possible case. Thus
he lay suffering in his gore until the sixth
day. when he received a change OF clothing,
IL. 1a,- ,ritb tho assistance
of his servant, he started both feeble and
faint, and reached his home. On the thir-
teenth day after receiving the wound it was
for the first time thoroughly dressed. Sup
puration had by this time taken place, and
he spit up 4 portion of the shoulder strap
with the bloody matter. The ball still re-
mains in the lungs, too heavy to be raised BY
the efforts made in coughing, where an ao-
cess is formed by the wound in the lung, and
suppuratiOn takes place, as 1t frequently
does. He now usually enjoys reasonable
degree Of health, with the exception of few
days each time that these inward gatherings
take place. This we regard one Of the
most remarkable cases Of recovery, from what
would be regarded by all surgeons as hope
less case, on record. When VIC contemplate
a man with such wound, lying for thirteen
davs without any efficient surgical or medical
aid, and without any change OF clothing for
six days, and in the main cold and damp,
without food or attention, we can not but be
struck with amazament at The wonderful re-
cuperativc powers Of the system in the case
Of the indomitable Lieut.. Kistlcr. We would
naturally suppose he must have suffered un-
told misery during those thirteen days, but
he SAYS he suffered but little, comparatively
speaking. His sensibiliti"s must have been
instantly stunned. He is living miracle to
all who know his case. Kind Providence
has heightened out his days for future service
in the cause OF his country.