Author’s Note
My name is Colby and I currently serve as the site’s Programs Coordinator. I wanted to share with our readers that this is a special post for me. It is always important to tell the stories of each and every person affected by the battle, but it is easy to forget the unsung heroes of battle, especially the stretcher bearers. My great grandfather, Henry Herman Vinson, served as a stretcher bearer during World War I and although I never met him, I can only imagine what he experienced and sacrificed in the fight to save lives. It’s not dissimilar from what many of the soldiers quoted in this post might have experienced here on the battlefield of Bentonville 159 years ago. If you read this in time, be sure to come visit March 16th, 2024 for our 159th anniversary commemoration, ‘Always on Duty,’ a program dedicated to telling the medical side of the story while honoring all who were here then and educating all who are here now. Thank you for reading!
Traveling with the army did not always mean toting a gun. Men and women of all different backgrounds, races, and duties marched with Sherman’s grand army through the Carolinas in winter and spring 1865. Although we often hear about field hospitals like the one at the Harper House, we don’t often contemplate the perspective of someone in the thick of the fight; not there for war, but there for mercy.
As we read about in the last blog post ‘Through A Soldier’s Eyes,’ we can never convey in a modern demonstration what it would have been like to viscerally experience a battle. However, we can examine the historical record and read the words of the people themselves to see through their eyes. So, this week we’ll explore the written perspectives of ambulance drivers, stretcher bearers, surgeons and chaplains to attempt to understand what it may have been like for them.
“I was never in the hospital, but always on duty.”
Oliver C. Townsend, Acting Asst. Quartermaster, Ambulance Corps, 1st Div. XIV Corps
Writing about his experience “with the ambulance train,” Oliver C. Townsend, Acting Assistant Quartermaster of the Ambulance Corps of the First Division, XIV Corps at Bentonville, wrote in some detail about his experience during the battle.
Townsend expressed the chaos and confusion of the U.S. response on the first day of the battle. “At the battle of Bentonville,” Townsend wrote, “my train was rushed to the front, the tents for the hospital soon up and in readiness for the wounded. I sent out a line of ambulances to each brigade of the division. The hospital was soon being filled with the wounded.”
Next, Townsend recounts the harrowing experience as the initial field hospital established at the Morris farmhouse was nearly overrun by the Confederate Army of Tennessee. “I well remember the order a staff officer gave me when I was out at the front helping load the wounded into ambulances. He rode up to me, and asked if I was the officer in charge of the hospital train. Being informed that I was, he said: ‘Get it out of here, and quick as God will let you. Our lines are broken and the boys are falling back.’ My horse being pretty good on foot, I was soon back at the hospital, the wounded loaded into the ambulances, tents taken down, hospital stores packed, and we were piloted through a piece of woods to the rear…where the hospital was again established and the work of amputating legs and arms progressed rapidly,” now referring to the field hospital established at the Harper House. Townsend concludes his account with short but effective overview, “The Bentonville battle was the last and one of the hardest battles of the rebellion.”
Even closer to the front lines and even more in the line of fire were the assistant surgeons, stewards, and chaplains assigned the grisly task of providing first aid to wounded soldiers and getting them loaded on to stretchers and into ambulances. Lewis W. Earl, Chaplain for the 21st Michigan, joined the surgeons at the front “dressing the wounded as they were brought from the field of battle.”
Stuck in the thick of fighting on the Cole Plantation on March 19th, Earle recounted this story:
“I have a vivid and stirring remembrance that one of the Surgeons said to me ‘Chaplain, look out there,’ and I saw a whole column of Gray-backs coming…just outside of our men. And I turned around looked in the opposite direction, and there [they] were coming, just outside our men, another force of these chaps. And things looked blue, yes, decidedly perilous. You ask if we run? Yes, like white heads. And I know that my old bob tailed mare never made such time for me before.”
Lewis Earl, Chaplain 21st Michigan
Retreating nearly a mile to the rear, Earle found shelter behind a second line of battle, further reinforced by the arrival of the U.S. 20th Corps, where they returned to their work.
On the other side of the battlefield, the Confederate army utilized a similar structure for their medical corps. Musicians, chaplains, surgeons, stewards, and more all pitched in to prioritize mercy over war and save as many lives as possible.
Brigade Musician and Fifer of the 33rd Mississippi regiment, Albert Quincy Porter, described his experience in his diary: “The cannonading was terrific beyond description,” Porter described, “the roar of small arms was terrible.”
Stretcher bearers are the unsung heroes of Civil War medicine. An often-forgotten piece of the medical care puzzle is how wounded soldiers traveled on the field, especially those with severe or leg wounds that could not walk themselves off the battlefield. While the Union army sometimes had designated stretcher bearers, many times both Union and Confederate musicians had to step into the action, without a gun, to serve this vital role.
“Our band was ordered to report at the Division hospital to take care of the wounded, one mile and a half from the battlefield.” The Confederate hospitals were mostly centered in and around the village of Bentonville. Surgeons operated on the side of the road and utilized homes like John J. Harper’s, and places of business such as Hood’s carriage shop.
“We had a very hard time of it,” Porter continues, “lifting wounded and assisting the surgeons in amputating. The surgeons were busy all night amputating and did not get through.”
The following day, March 20th, the village was likely filling to capacity with wounded soldiers. As skirmishing and fighting continued, some medical staff began removing the wounded along the road (modern day Devil’s Racetrack Road) toward Smithfield for better care. Porter explains, “Our hospital was moved 3 miles back to the rear this morning together with the wounded southerners that was left. The poor Southerners who were wounded are, while I am writing, laying all around me on the ground suffering and bleeding, oh how I do feel for them.”
March 21st, the final day of the battle, Porter’s work continued, “We remained here all day today and was busy all day in sending off the wounded in wagons and ambulances to Smithfield.” Although field hospitals were usually far enough behind the front lines to be deemed relatively safe, Porter described the fear as Mower’s Charge rushed the village, nearly capturing the Mill Creek Bridge and overrunning General Johnston’s headquarters in the process. “At one time the enemies…got in between where we were and our army, but our cavalry drove them back. They came so near our hospital I began to think there was no chance for us only to be captured.”
“I was myself, I think, in this battle in greater personal peril than on any previous occasion in the war but was mercifully preserved.”
Surgeon James t reeve, 21st Wisconsin
To be ‘always on duty,’ as Townsend described often meant to also be in great ‘personal peril.’ As we’ve seen in these few eye-opening, jaw-dropping accounts, the work of medical care during Civil War battles like Bentonville never ceased.
We’re fortunate at Bentonville to preserve the Harper House, used as a XIV Corps field hospital during the battle, and tell the stories of the surgeons who operated there, like James T. Reeve (quoted above). However, focusing on the field hospitals limits the stories and causes us to forget the other surgeons, stewards, musicians, chaplains, and ambulance drivers, who sacrificed and put themselves directly in the line of fire; not for war, but for mercy.
Thank you again for reading this blog post! If you are interested in learning more about medical care at Bentonville, join us March 16th, 2024 for our FREE 159th anniversary living history event, “Always on Duty:” Medical Care at Bentonville. Stay up to date with our events and ongoing research by following us on social media or subscribing to our blog:
Article by Colby Lipscomb, Programs Coordinator, Bentonville Battlefield State Historic Site
Sources:
Bradley, Mark L. 1996. The Battle of Bentonville. Da Capo Press, Incorporated.
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