Major William Watson - Letters Of A Civil War Surgeon

This edition is published by PICKLE PARTNERS PUBLISHINGwww.picklepartnerspublishing.com

To join our mailing list for new titles or for issues with our books picklepublishing@gmail.com

Or on Facebook

Text originally published in 1961 under the same title.

Pickle Partners Publishing 2015, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publishers Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

Letters of a Civil War Surgeon

Edited by

Paul Fatout

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER

1861-1865

To soldiers of all armies, north and south, who lived through that war and who died in it, this book in dedicated.

These letters of Major William Watson, surgeon in the Army of the Potomac from 1862 to 1865, are the property of his grandniece, Mrs. Margaret Winfield Woodworth, of West Lafayette, Indiana. I am grateful for her kind permission to publish them. My best thanks also to E. R. Abe Taylor, a Civil War enthusiast of the Indiana State Police, who informed me of the existence of these letters.

The only editing is minor and mechanical, applied only for convenience in reading. Dr. Watson, like other correspondents, had his idiosyncrasies. Generally writing in a hurry, he did not bother with paragraphing, question marks, apostrophes, or periods after abbreviations. Commas are almost non-existent and quotation marks rare. His chief mark resembles a dash that at times was probably intended as a dash, at other times as a period.

Conventional punctuation has been supplied. Otherwise, except for deletion of sections dealing only with family matters, relatives and friends, the letters are reproduced verbatim. Sporadic capitalization has been preserved, though it is often difficult to determine whether or not capitalization was intended.

Considering that many were written hastily under stress of campaigning, the letters are remarkably legible. They are the record of a non-combatant medical officer in the midst of combat. Chiefly concerned with immediate events, he was yet a man of positive convictions and unclouded Union sympathies who expressed views on the larger implications of the war. Major Watson has left us a human narrative derived from almost three years of first-hand experience in the great conflict.

Much of the preparation of this book for the press occurred while I was in Berkeley, California. In this long-distance editing I would have been stymied without the faithful support of Mrs. Richard Beale, former editorial assistant of Purdue University Studies. I am grateful also to my wife, Roberta, for sterling aid on proofing and indexing.

P. F.

West Lafayette, Ind.

June 1, 1961

ON SEPTEMBER 12, 1862, Dr. William Watson, aged 25, of Bedford, Pennsylvania, was detailed as surgeon with the rank of major to the 105th Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers. The son of a physician, a graduate of Lafayette College and the medical college of the University of Pennsylvania, the young surgeon was professionally well qualified, and he was also a strong Union man.

The 105th Regiment, organized at Pittsburgh in September-October, 1861, had seen service in the defense of Washington and in General McClellans Peninsula campaign in early 1862, having been blooded at Fair Oaks, Seven Pines, and the Seven Days battles before Richmond. Afterward it saw action at Malvern Hill and, during Popes campaign in northern Virginia, at Bristoe Station, second Bull Run, Chantilly, and elsewhere. When Major Watson joined the regiment, it was a seasoned outfit guarding Potomac fords from the Monocacy River to Conrads Ferry. A unit of the Army of the Potomac, the 105th was in the 3rd Corps, Major General S. P. Heintzelman; 1st Division, Brigadier General David B. Birney; 1st Brigade, Brigadier General John C. Robinson. Colonel Amor A. McKnight had been in command of the regiment since its organization.

Until his discharge on May 27, 1865, Major Watson sent home many letters: to his father, Dr. William Hartley Watson; and to his six younger sisters: Ella, Charlotte, Eliza, Emma, Margaret, and Marie. In these frequent missives, often hastily scribbled, he has left us a variety of impressions of camp life, marches and battles; of the soldiers matter-of-fact willingness to accept, though not without grumbling, the rigors of his lot; of concern with the job at hand and with immediate needs like food and shelter; of a veterans indifference to the flag-waving of professional patriots.

After being commissioned by Governor Andrew J. Curtin, the new surgeon prepared to search for his regiment. From Harrisburg, on September 16, he wrote his father:

I have been detailed to the 105th, Col. McKnight. He is somewhere about Washington or in Maryland about Hagerstown. I received imperative orders to leave today at one oclock. But will not get off until tonight. I go strait [ sic ] to Washington and look up my Regiment. No one here knows its exact locality. I have not succeeded yet in getting any Uniform....Tell the Girls I have not time to get my Photograph taken. But when I am equipped and have time I will send it them....You had better look me up a horse. As Surgeon doubtless I will need one. I will write you particularly about it as soon as I am fixed. Let the Girls write me often. {1}

The Girls were his bevy of sisters, from whom he wanted, as soldiers always want, a flow of letters. He went on to the vicinity of Washington where, trying to locate the 105th Pennsylvania, he coped with the red tape and confusion common to armies and particularly prevalent in the turmoil around the capitol in 1862. He sensed, also, a slight hint of the politicking that, from first to last, beset the Army of the Potomac. On September 17, he wrote:

I arrived in Washington 10 A. M. to day. Did not succeed in getting equipped in Harrisburgnor am I better off here at present. Immediately on arriving I set about finding my Regt. I went to Alexandria by boat. Then I gave a Livery man five dollars to drive me in search of the Regt. Did not take my baggage with me as I intended returning to Washington to get my outfit. After many hours search I succeeded in overhauling the Regiment and a more dilapidated one I never expect to see. They have been engaged in all the sanguinary Peninsular fights. The tents are nothing but rags affording no protection whatever. The Regt. only numbers three hundred and fiftyall the rest being sick or wounded in the General Hospitals. There are two Assistant Surgeons. The first assistant has been in service since last October. He questioned me closely, asking what Regt. I belonged to previous to promotion. I know by the way he talked that he had expected the position himself....The Regiment is located about seven miles south of Alexandria guarding one of the advanced forts....The Regiment is attached to General Robinsons Brigade, Kearnys division. I am afraid I will have hard quarters for a [ sic ] awhile if we dont succeed in getting new tents. There is not a Sibley tent in the whole Regt. After obtaining all the information I could (which, by the way, was little if any thing at all) I started for Washington. Having no pass I was stopped by the Guards about half way between Camp and Alexandria. Not being able to find the Commanding Officer I was unable to procure one....So I dismissed the carriage and after much time and trouble succeeded in getting into a very indifferent and uninviting Hotel. So here I am with a mighty slim prospect of spending a comfortable night....You have no idea of the exhorbitant [ sic ] prices that are charged for every thing pertaining to Military. I will not have sufficient money, so I intend asking Gideon to lend me fifty dollars....It will be impossible for me to do without a horse. So please think of the best way to supply me. I am told the Regiment is constantly on the move. So you see the difficulty I would have in accompanying it....I never saw so many niggers in all my life as are here. You see contrabands of all sizes, ages and colors walking the streets constantly. Tell the Girls to write me often and I will return the compliment as soon as possible. Pa, you must write me as often as convenient. {2}