Thorisaz Views: Gettysburg Makeshift Hospitals

The Makeshift Hospitals

During the Civil War, many places were turned into makeshift hospitals near where soldiers would be wounded. Lots of places that were not designed to be hospitals were suddenly turned into a dropping point for bleeding carcasses. No promises that too many would make it.

Picture a cannon loaded with a pound and a half to two pounds of gun powder aimed at you. How much damage would that create if it hit your leg? Head or chest, you’re going down.

Would you bleed out before someone could get to you? Would you know enough to try to apply pressure, or would you be in la la land, thinking it’s a mere bee sting, no big problem? Would you try to walk, as if your leg was still there, only to fall down and have to wiggle?

If you were lucky enough to be dragged over to one of these makeshift hospitals, if you had a hit to your arm or leg, you were likely going to receive an amputation. It’s not like they had all these fun pills that people love to pop today, and even if they had some pain medicine, no guarantee that there’s enough to go around to all the ones would sorely desire even just a lil. Saw off a limb on an amputation board designed with a series of holes for the blood to run through, or more likely, a board that was ripped off the door or even window of a house.

It's not like it’s easy to saw through bones, not like they were using diamond-tipped blades. They have to put some muscle into it, and it takes a while to saw all the way through. Surgeons were not exactly from Ivy League schools, as it was all hands on deck, and it might be someone’s first time even trying to do an amputation, someone not really schooled at all.

No nearby pain medicine meant soldiers bit down on pieces of wood, leather, and even bullets. Gritting down with all the pain of someone hacking through your limb, teeth are busted out. Going to be hard to smile and wave at loved ones with teeth and limbs missing, huh?

Not like most of them were going to make it in the first place. Hacksaw off a limb, add it to the growing pile, and cast him aside for the next soldier that needs assistance. Someone says they’ll be back to check on them, but with all the hurt continually pouring in, who is the one who prioritizes the care, when one needs an amputation and another is recovering from one?

If you’re hurt, it’s not like you’re the highest priority for food and water when there’s active soldiers that are starving and thirsty. Who do you think will get fed first and fed best? The one who might live to fight another day, or the one missing a limb that won’t be fighting soon?

How many are lying in a pile of other bleeding bodies, some of which may be dead, or simply a torso writhing on the ground? Snipers might not be very gentlemanly, but there were snipers taking soldiers out. One second, it’s a nice day, then zap, fall to the knees, then fall forward.

On Cemetery Hill, there was hand-to-hand combat, and if you’re concerned about being stabbed by some makeshift metal knife on the end of someone’s rifle, then are you going back to check on your buddy that fell if you’re trying to keep yourself from dying at the same time? Looks like you’re going to have to wait until the danger clear, Buddy. No telling how much blood you will lose, or if there will be any life left in you, by the time all the gun smoke clears.

Here's the Ohio guys, trying to hold down their position by the small stream and the hill, but the southern soldiers are thirsty, too. They literally have to kill to be able to get to the water. Some might not even know that it’s there, as it’s not like a tropical oasis, barely visible behind the treeline, so they are likely only fighting for their own lives, simply to stay alive a bit longer.

It’s not like the war was even supposed to happen there. It wasn’t a well planned out battle. It’s not like people had time to stake out the best strategic points necessarily, as it was kind of more like an ambush, one side knowing the other side would be stopping for supplies and voila.

Gettysburg was the turning point, as the south had been winning up to that point. Had it not been for the rally of all the northern troops rushing in, history may have ended up differently. Of course, by rushing in, it’s not like they had super fast race cars and jets to zoom in on, no problem, as it was more like hoofing it across the land, maybe a train if you’re really lucky.

How many miles could you walk in a day without stopping? How long can you walk without a drink of water or a bite of food? How exhausted would you be doing that everyday repeatedly, then you have people shooting at you, after being so tired, hungry, and it’s fight or die, because if you don’t spring to action, you will be taken down, so can you handle pressure?

Oh yeah, and if you don’t like the conditions, and you think you’re going to desert the military, just take a look at those soldiers hanging in Sachs Covered Bridge, dangling from the still green wood trusses of the bridge for all to see, leather strap indenting the wood permanently for all. So, you basically have the choice to fight and be killed, or you can try to run away and be killed for being a coward, choice is up to you, so you want to be remembered as a hero or as a coward? Kinda like they’d tell the WWII kamikaze pilots: they can either fly the plane, be killed and remembered as a hero, or you can be forever shamed, if you’re not simply killed anyway.

Civil War didn’t have that kind of technology. It’s more like lucky if you get a horse days. Early July heat and humidity, fog rolling in at night, mountainous terrain to maneuver.

Don’t trip. Don’t twist an ankle. Might get an amputation if you do that.

Walk around Devil’s Den, not having a clue who is lurking between the rocks, watching you, waiting for that perfect shot. They might simply lunge out at you. Close combat style.

You never know who is waiting in those tall weeds. Are they on their belly watching you? Would you be able to tell where they were, before they could get a shot fired off at you?

Get injured, and it’s off to a makeshift hospital, which might be in a field, or it might be in a building that was never meant to see that kind of carnage and bloodshed, such as the college. Clear out the way, because bleeding soldiers are being carried in, and there’s so many more to grab, that it’s more like a dump and go, as opposed to lounging in a hospital waiting room. Having the option of a bathroom or a drinking fountain were luxuries you were likely not going to find at most of these field hospitals, as there were literally tents set up in fields.

Having a building at the college must have seemed like the luxury option in comparison to a tent in the middle of a field that had zipping bullets constantly whirring at people’s heads. Imagine all the blood that smeared down the hallways of the college building, soldiers bleeding out while waiting for care, staff frantic, trying to help as many as possible, overwhelmed. How many gut-wrenching screams were heard as people were getting their limbs sawed?

That’s a history that is blood-soaked through the halls, no matter how many times people cleaned it over the course of more than a century. Did it surprise me to see the most swarming bats in one place that I think I’d ever seen, zipping around the chimney on campus? I was not expecting to see it, but after learning the history, I guess oddities can be the norm at times.

Imagine the woozy sways. Was that a mosquito or a bullet taking a bite of your clavicle? God forbid you ate some rancid meat, roadkill or whatever you could find, only to result in the brown rains, with no indoor plumbing or toilet paper. Scootch your butt on the grass, I guess.

One minute, you’re marching just fine, then you feel that twinge in your stomach that makes you think you got shot, but it’s just your guts telling you that they’re ready to explode. Imagine being all nervous, getting the shits, and not being able to stop, as people are launching canons at you, trying to spear you up close and there are bullets zipping past your head. Whatever you last ate comes out in whole chunks, and the sight makes you want to barf.

It's not like you can hold it down once it wants to come out. Mouth starts to water as a tell-tale sign that puking is about to occur. It’s not like you can hop in a hot bath, curl up in bed, or call to mommy to come take care of you when you’re out in a field hundreds of miles from home, where the only people you know are getting sniped down, one by one, and you watch.

How much carnage could you endure? How many heads can you see get blown off? One minute, a soldier is marching, the next his head explodes like a watermelon from a canon.

Plop. Flop to the ground. Twitch and still.

How many times can you see that happen? Would the sight of blood alone make you want to puke, let alone the splatter of brains that follow, sprinkling on you if you’re too close by? Would you even be able to spare enough water to puke or shit after being dehydrated?

When people die, they lose their bowels. How much of that would you like to walk through? Step over the bodies the best you can, as they keep mounding up in bloody puddles all around.

How many bodies can you carry back and forth to a makeshift hospital, before you get shot? You might have the best of intentions on saving as many as possible, but the healer can become the patient, now having to endure the same saw used on so many others for another amputation. From sawing through bones to having a saw used to hack through your flesh, watching the unschooled doctor sweating, trying their best to make it through your limb.

These are the types of memories that the Gettysburg College holds, which is why it is home to so many ghost tours. Walking the streets of Gettysburg, imagine how many dead bodies were cast aside on those very streets, how many spirits are being walked over. It’s no wonder there’s so many ghost tours and metaphysical shops, as you just might need to clear the air after a while.

Sure, there’s tons of history books about the battle and the location, but no matter how many books you read or shows you watch, it’s not quite the same as walking in the same steps as these fallen soldiers. Looking around, watching fog set in, seeing the high weeds were people would hide, put yourself in the shoes of a soldier camped out in a tent in the woods, hoping that they don’t get killed while they are sleeping. When you open yourself up to trying to experience what they went through, they will be all too glad to show you, as they relive it.

The time loops are there. They can be felt. Some scenery has not changed over the years.

What will you feel? What will you experience? It’s not like it’s the same for everyone.

Only way to know for sure is to go check it out for yourself. Meet Jenny Wade and her fallen soldier friends. Stop by to say hi to the kids at the orphanage, as you never know who might be sitting next to or walking right alongside of you when you’re walking through Gettysburg.