The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1891-07-12

been shot down wheeled his horse and rode
back at galop the way he had come. 1t is
sad to say that this gallant fellow was so des-
perately wounded that he died the next day,
as we afterward learned by flag of truce.
At the same siege we had another assistant
surgeon named beftwitch. The yankees
brought up an eight-gun battery after driving
in our outlying pickets and videttes, and the
brigade was ordered to lie down behind the
breastworks and not to fire shot
hundred yards. The Federals began with
round shot and canister, and leftwitch was
about twenty feet In the rear of the line in
slight depression of the ground. We were
perfectly shielded from the shot, but 1t was
fun to see Leftwitch squirm rs he rolled over
and over with the minnie-balls and shell pas
sing about two feet above him. The boys
howled at him and told him to come out Of
the wet, etc.; but soon an incautious fellow
had his hand above the works, and a bullet
mutilated 1t. Instantly Leftwitch was on
his feet, and in spite of the leaden storm that
was pouring over us, he dressed the wound as
coolly as if the man hurt had been a subject
on the dissecting table. We never laughed at
Leftwitch after that.
There was an assistant surgeon in our bat
TALON during the seige OF Petersburg, who
once upon time showed a greater amount OF
nerve than is required to stand up in battle.
1t frequently happened that the thirty
FOUNDER Parrot shell from the enemy's bat
teries went over our lines and with ricochet
bound would plunge into our camp, and,
being percussion shells, not one in twenty Of
them burst; fortunately for us. One day a
she'll struck young fellow below the knee
and cut off his leg as neatly as If it had been
done with a broad-aXe. Surgeon Brown was
summoned, and when the youth told him that
he felt no pain and didn't know that his leg
was off, the doctor at once saw that the shock
had paralyZed the nerve centres. He used
every means to bring on reaction without
avail. Then the officers of the youths COM
pany and the commandant of the battalion
urged Brown to amputate the limb above
where the bone was shattered or to have an
other surgeon sent for. Upon his refusal they
threatened him with a court-martial for in
competency; but he held firmly to his determin-
alton to put no knife to the leg until reac-
tion from the shock had taken place. While
they were squabbling the soldier died. The
officers tried to bring the matter before court
MARTIAL but they were given to understand
distinctly from headquarters that surgeons
were appointed to take care of and be re-
sponsible for the sick and wounded. Browns
position, on account of doing his plain duty
became so disagreeable that he sought and
obtained transfer.
1 have said that as far as regiments of our
brigade were concerned the assistant surgeons
always kept immediately in rear of the fight
ing line in order to render immediate as
sistance to men who had arteries cut, ETC.,
and to see that the ambulance corps stood up
to their work. L never heard Of any of them
finching from duty, although in talking over
this subject other Confederates have told me
that they knew Of instances in other COM
mands where the surgeons had been forced to
do their duty at the points of the bayonets of
the rear guards However this may have been,
only know OF one instance where surgeon
was hated by his men, and that was not be-
cause he was skulker in battle, but for the
reason that he seemed to have no feeling for
their suffering and gave them as little atten-
tion as possible. At the morning ck-call
he had but one panacea for all ills, whether
fever, dysentery, jaundice, chills and fever,
or what not-red- oak-bark tea. He had
plenty of quinine, opium, whisky, etc.. in his
medicine chest at the time, but he never dealt
them out except when especially directed to
do so by the surgeon, whose services were
nearly always in request at the division hos
pital and who was therefore seldom with the
regiment. AT last, when on the march, the
men were so exasperated with Boswell that
when he passed them a resounaing shout of
'Quack, quack !" would go down the line,
and the officers were unable or disinclined to
stop this show of feeling, for the regiment on
this point was fairly in a state of mutiny
Finally Boswell was fairly run out of the
regiment
was talking with brigade commander
in the West the other night and he told me,
surgeons in the late war, that he re-
membered that after the battle of Shelbyyille,
or Stone River, the Federals took all the
horses OF the Confederate surgeons in their
first success and that afterward his command
recaptured these horses and also secured the
horses of the surgeons Of the Federal field
hospital. The ESPRIT du corps was such that
the Confederate surgeons demanded that the
hrigadier of cavalry should deliver up his cap
tured horses to the Fedaral surgeons as amere
matter of comfy of relations between nom
combatants. Suffice II to say that the entente
'cOrdiale has not been re-established between
the cavalry and the surgeons to this day.
T. j. M.