For Want of Safe Evacuation
While working on my thesis recently, I was reading Medical Recollections of the Army of the Potomac by Dr. Letterman. He offered a brief note about the wounding of Stonewall Jackson at the battle of Chancellorsville:
The entire field was brilliantly illuminated by the incessant flashing of many guns, and the whole region resounded with the deafening roar of artillery. During the night Lieutenant-General Jackson was accidentally wounded by some of his own men, and shortly afterwards died. In him we lost a formidable enemy, and the rebellion a powerful supporter to that cause:
‘A blast from out his bugle horn
were worth ten thousand men.’
were worth ten thousand men.’
It is interesting that Letterman was working to make things like stretcher travel safe for a soldier, yet the lack of that very same thing was a major part of what caused Jackson’s death.