A slow, agonizing death for Private George Chamberlain

16th Connecticut Private George Chamberlain suffered from a "wound from the entrance
 of musket ball a little below the bend of the right knee," according to a
Union surgeon's report.  (Chamberlain image Middlesex County Historical Society)

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Adapted from my book, Connecticut Yankees at Antietam. E-mail me for information on how to purchase an autographed copy. Click here for the Faces of the Civil War thread on my blog.

After he sliced open George F. Chamberlain’s shot-up right knee on Oct. 17, 1862, surgeon Edward McDonnell drained more than a pint of pus from the 18-year-old soldier’s wound. His patient was “very nervous,” the surgeon noticed, undoubtedly because the Rebel lead in his leg still had not been removed a month after the Battle of Antietam.

A private in Company G of the 16th Connecticut, Chamberlain at least could count on the comfort of his mother, who traveled from Middletown, Conn., and remained by her son’s side in Maryland hospitals for six months while he recuperated. George was quite close to Mary Ann Chamberlain, a single mother who had struggled to rear her only son and three daughters ever since her husband, Ezra, a leader in the Adventist movement, had died in 1855. Before the Civil War, George worked as a clerk in Middletown and on a farm, giving his earnings to mother, who supplemented the family’s meager household income by teaching children at her small house.   When he enlisted in the Union army on Aug. 9, 1862, George, who stood 5-11 and had long brown hair, brown eyes and a light complexion, had to receive Mary Ann’s written consent.

When McDonnell first examined Chamberlain after he was admitted to the German Reformed Church hospital on Main Street in Sharpsburg on Oct. 6, he noticed a bullet wound slightly below the bend of the right knee. Apparently lodged in a spongy part of the tibia, the bullet caused a great deal of inflammation and required Chamberlain to keep his leg still and flexed at a right angle to avoid excruciating pain. McDonnell prescribed cold and hot cloth treatments for the swollen knee and applied wet oakum, a surgical dressing made of rope, to absorb blood, pus and other fluids that drained from the wound.   Amputation -- the bane of almost every wounded soldier -- apparently was not an option, but Chamberlain’s health seemed to teeter on the brink.

          A panoramic view of the field where George Chamberlain was wounded.

“He was some of the time in danger of losing his life from fever and septic accidents,” recalled Truman Squire, a surgeon in the 89th New York, who also treated soldiers at the Reformed Church.

As Chamberlain recuperated, 16th Connecticut Pvt. Jacob Bauer of Berlin tried to cheer his friend, giving him his watch “to amuse him” and perhaps to take back home when he was well. But by November, Chamberlain still was not healthy enough to go home. While Mary Ann helped care for her son, they witnessed the death of another Connecticut soldier. On Nov. 16, 16th Connecticut Pvt. Horace Lay of Hartford, who had suffered serious bullet wounds in both legs, died with his wife by his side at the Reformed Church.

On April 1, 1863, nearly six months after he was wounded at Antietam, Chamberlain finally was discharged from the army and sent back to Middletown under the care of his mother. But the young soldier was never the same after he was shot in farmer Joseph Sherrick's 40-acre cornfield. George was “emaciated and very weak” because of his war wound, remembered a Middletown doctor who treated him for free because the Chamberlains couldn’t afford to pay. “He had a cough which he attributed to a cold contracted in the hospital,” recalled Dr. Rufus Baker, who noted that Chamberlain also suffered from a slight hemorrhaging of the lung.  Gainful employment was out of the question for a young man who needed crutches or a cane to walk.

Desperate to get better, Chamberlain traveled to Ohio, where he lived in a boarding house and with relatives. While there, he was persuaded to try electric bath treatments at a facility on Prospect Street in Cleveland. Although of dubious value, ill and infirm people sought such treatments, which employed electricity of  low voltage generated by friction devices.

The Union army used the German Reformed Church in Sharpsburg, Md., as a hospital after Antietam.

     Where Chamberlain was treated: Inside the old German Reformed Church hospital.

“I am still here and shall remain for a while,” he wrote his mother on March 12, 1864, “long enough to give it a fair chance.”

 Initially, Chamberlain was optimistic his health would improve.

 “I think he is the nearest right of any physician that I have employed,” Chamberlain wrote his mother about an Ohio doctor in late winter 1864. “He says also that from my throat to my stomach is one complete mass of ulcers and that it is like raw meat. … I am convinced that the greatest trouble is in my stomach. I am greatly troubled to keep food down at all.”  Unable to work, Chamberlain worried about how he was going to pay for his room and board and bath treatments, which cost $1.50 each.

16th Connecticut monument at Antietam.

Extremely concerned about her son, Mary Ann Chamberlain offered encouragement. “Do try to be careful of your health,” she wrote George on June 16, 1864. “Go to bed early at night. Keep good company and above all make up your mind to serve God.”

But Chamberlain’s health was no better by the spring of 1865. “Sometimes I think the baths help me,” he wrote Mary Ann Chamberlain on March 16, “and then I get discouraged and think they don’t."
     
By late spring 1865, Chamberlain took a turn for the worse. The electric bath treatments provided no benefit. Coughing attacks continued. On May 11, 1865 -- 958 days after he was shot in the right knee in a cornfield at Antietam and a little more than a month after Lee had surrendered to Grant -- George Chamberlain died at the home of a relative in Stow Township, Ohio. He was 21 years old. The cause of death, according to a doctor, was the battlefield wound and “attendant constitutional injuries.”

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SOURCES

--Squires, T. and McDonnell, E; Surgeons Reports, File A, Box 15, Records of Adjutant Generals Office, Record Group 94; Nationals Archives Building, Washington, D.C.
--George Chamberlain and Horace Lay pension records, National Archives and Records Service, Washington.
--Pvt. Jacob Bauer letter to his wife, Oct. 2, 1862, Copy in Antietam National Battlefield library.

Antietam: Inside the German Reformed Church hospital

Captain Henry Sand of the 103rd New York
died at the German Reformed Church hospital.
(New York State Military Museum)

A post Sunday included images of the beautiful Connecticut windows in the church on Main Street in Sharpsburg, Md., that was used as a hospital after the Battle of Antietam. Here are two interactive panoramas that I shot Saturday afternoon of the interior of what once was the German Reformed Church hospital. Now the Christ Reformed Church, the small, red-brick building has undergone at least two renovations since the Civil War.

If you were to step back in time to late September 1862, you'd see wounded soldiers on wooden planks, which were placed across the pews. Parishioners aided the overtaxed doctors, who treated terribly wounded soldiers whose stumps needed to be drained of pus and cleared of maggots and flies. Amputated limbs were tossed out the windows. Some wounded may have been placed in the balcony, which no longer exists. 

An Irish-born surgeon named Edward McDonnell kept a casebook in which he detailed the treatment of  wounded here. On Oct. 30, 1862, he witnessed the death of a horribly wounded New York officer, whose thigh had been mangled by Rebel artillery. "He was able to speak to within an hour or so of his death," the surgeon wrote of 25-year-old Captain Henry Sand of the 103rd New York, "and thus passed to another, and I believe better, world."

Antietam Up Close: Beautiful Connecticut church windows

One of the more awe-inspiring scenes at the Antietam isn't on the battlefield. It's in a seldom-visited church on Main Street in Sharpsburg, Md. -- a church that after the battle was used as a hospital by the Union army. When the sun hits the stained-glass windows just right in the small, red-brick building, it can take your breath away. The windows were donated in 1891 by veterans of the 16th Connecticut, whose comrades were treated (and some of whom died) at the church hospital after the battle. I've written about the German Reformed Church hospital many times, including here, here and here. I shot these up-close images during a short visit on Saturday afternoon to the church, now called the Christ Reformed Church, which celebrated its 250th anniversary last year.

Antietam: Private Henry Tracy found his wounded friend 'as white as marble' at German Reform Church hospital

The grave in Enfield, Conn.., of Henry Tracy. Right, Tracy in a  post-war image in a newspaper.

The stories of many who witnessed or fought in the Battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862, have been pushed deep into the shadows of history, in many cases waiting to be uncovered in musty recesses of state libraries, archives, historical societies or family attics. One such story is that of  Henry Fitch Tracy, whose name popped up repeatedly during research for my book, "Connecticut Yankees at Antietam." This afternoon, I finally tracked down Tracy's final resting place in Connecticut. An old flower arrangement and a veterans marker, minus the American flag, lay next to the hollow zinc family monument near the graves of other Civil War veterans. Information on Tracy's life remains sketchy, but one incident at Antietam involving him is documented.

A private in Company C of the 16th Connecticut, Tracy was detailed to serve as a nurse after Antietam. The 24-year-old soldier, who missed the battle with a severe case of sunstroke, had already seen plenty of blood and gore as a member of a burial party after the fighting at South Mountain three days earlier. Tracy was stunned when his close friend, John Loveland of Company C, was brought to John Otto’s barn at Antietam with a gruesome battlefield wound: a fractured femur protruding two or three inches from his left leg, between the knee and hip.

Because Loveland was too weak from blood loss and exposure, surgeons would not dare risk performing an amputation, probably necessary to save the 23-year-old soldier’s life. In charge of 80 wounded men, including more than 40 from his regiment, Tracy gave special attention to his friend, a married man who earned his living as a barber before he joined the army. Over the course of the next several months, Tracy remained busy caring for sick, wounded and broken men.

Henry M. Adams, a private in
the 16th Connecticut,
became "fast friends" with
  Henry Tracy
(Photo: U.S. Army Military
History Institute)

When Loveland was transferred to the German Reformed Church hospital on Main Street in Sharpsburg, Tracy was sent there to help care for the many wounded from his regiment. (See my interactive panorama of the inside of the church here.) As he approached Loveland’s bunk early one October morning more than a week after his friend's leg finally was amputated, he noticed his face was “as white as marble.”  (1) Carefully lifting the bed cover, he discovered Loveland’s sheets saturated with blood. Suddenly, a gusher of blood spurted two or three feet in the air, the grisly result of Loveland’s leg artery disintegrating. Tracy frantically pressed hard with his thumb on the artery to stop the flow of blood, but the effort was futile. Loveland died a short time later. (In a chapter in my book, you can read much more on Connecticut soldiers who died at the German Reformed Church.)

Tracy befriended at least one other wounded Connecticut soldier during his experience at Antietam: Henry M. Adams, a private in Company G of the 16th Connecticut. After the war, the men became "fast friends," according to an account in the Hartford Courant, and Tracy attended Adams' 75th  birthday party in 1915. (2)

A little more than four months after Antietam, Tracy left the horror of the Civil War behind. On a train trip with wounded men from Harpers Ferry to Philadelphia in December 1862, he suffered from exposure and work stress during a heavy snowstorm. A broken man by the time he reached Philadelphia, he suffered from chronic diarrhea and was placed in a hospital. Tracy was discharged from the Union army on Jan. 27, 1863.

Nearly 57 years after Antietam, on July 17, 1919, 81-year-old Henry F. Tracy died. With members of the local Grand Army of the Republic Post in attendance, he was laid to rest three days later in Hazardville Cemetery in Enfield, Conn.

(1) National Tribune, Oct. 18, 1888
(2) Hartford Courant, July 20, 1919, Page 5

A circa 1890s image by J.H. Wagoner of the German Reformed Church, a Union hospital
after the Battle of Antietam. Henry Tracy, a private in the 16th Connecticut,
served as a nurse here after the battle. PHOTO: Courtesy Stephen Recker.

Antietam: Envelope addressed to a wounded private

This envelope contained a letter addressed to Horace Lay, a private in the 16th Connecticut who
was wounded at Antietam. He died nearly two months after the battle. (Author's collection)
(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

Lay died at the German Reformed Church Hospital in
 Sharpsburg on Nov. 16, 1862. Worship services are still held
 in the building, now called Christ Reformed Church.

On Oct. 5, 1862, nearly three weeks after he was shot at the Battle of Antietam, Private Horace Lay of the 16th Connecticut was admitted to the German Reformed Church Hospital with severe wounds in his right leg and left thigh. He had another bullet wound in the groin, probably suffered as he lay incapacitated after he was first wounded in John Otto's 40-acre cornfield a short distance from the village of Sharpsburg, Md. (See my interactive panoramas of Otto's cornfield.) A 16th Connecticut comrade who saw Lay at the church hospital in early November recalled that the 36-year-old soldier was “very low” and not expected to recover. A surgeon wrote in his casebook that amputation of Lay’s left leg was imperative because a bullet had fractured the soldier’s left femur. (1)

Also in early November, someone from Connecticut, perhaps Lay's wife Charlotte, wrote to the soldier who suffered in the small church 350 miles from the state. The letter writer may have inquired about the grievously wounded man's condition and perhaps offered a few words of encouragement for Lay, one of many soldiers from Connecticut who were treated in the small building on Sharpsburg's main street. Perhaps the letter writer also noted that Charlotte soon planned to go to western Maryland to help nurse her husband back to health and that Lay's 11-year-old son,

Private Horace Lay's 
gravestone, No. 1,100,  in
 Antietam National Cemetery

also named Horace, was concerned about his father. Sadly, the letter is lost to history, but the envelope for it survives. Postmarked Nov. 2, 1862 in Hartford and affixed with a three-cent stamp with an image of George Washington, it is simply addressed to Lay at the German Reform Church Hospital, Sharpsburg, Md. (See my interactive panorama of the church.)

The letter that the envelope contained may have briefly cheered Lay, who probably had his left leg amputated. But on Nov. 16, 1862, nearly two months after he was wounded, Horace Lay died with Charlotte by his side. Perhaps because she could not afford to transport her husband's body back to Connecticut, the private was buried somewhere in Sharpsburg shortly after his death. His remains were disinterred after the war, and today the shoemaker lies buried in the Connecticut section at Antietam National Cemetery under a weathered marker, No. 1,100, that simply notes his name, state and Civil War allegiance.

(1) Banks, John, "Connecticut Yankees at Antietam," Charleston, S.C., History Press, 2013, Page 62

Antietam Up Close: Battle damage at Lutheran Church

Sharpsburg's Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church was used as a hospital for the 
Union V Corps. The image was taken by Alexander Gardner on Sept. 21 or 22, 1862.
 (Library of Congress collection)

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As Alexander Gardner's bulky camera captured the image above of the village of Sharpsburg four or five days after the Battle of Antietam, Union wounded from the V Corps were being treated in the church that appears prominently at left.

Mount Calvary Lutheran Church, built in 1768, was one of three Sharpsburg churches that were used as hospitals after the battle. In enlargements of Gardner's image, heavy battle damage appears on the side of the church, which was used as a signal station by the Rebels and thus may have been a primary Federal target.

Upon close inspection of the image, gravestones in the Lutheran cemetery behind the fence and even four men in front of the church are readily apparent. (The cemetery is still preserved today.) The glass plate image is so sharp, in fact, that in the second enlargement below a window on the opposite side of the church may be seen through the window on the right.

About a quarter-mile down the main road in Sharpsburg, well out of view of Gardner's camera, more Union wounded, including many from Connecticut, were being cared for at the German Reformed Church. Privates Horace Lay and James Brooks of the 16th Connecicut and Private John Doolittle of the 8th Connecticut died there. Another church in Sharpsburg, St. Paul's Episcopal, which also suffered damage from Union artillery, was used primarily as a Rebel hospital. It may be seen in the background of another image that Gardner shot of Sharpsburg, also recorded on Sept. 21 or 22, 1862, according to research by William Frassanito in his excellent 1978 book, Antietam: The Photographic Legacy of America's Bloodiest Day. 

Mount Calvary and St. Paul's were torn down in the 19th century. The German Reformed Church, now called Christ Reformed Church, was renovated in the late 19th century and is still open for worship.

In enlargements of Gardner's famous image of Mount Calvary Lutheran Church,
 battle damage caused by Union artillery is readily apparent. Gravestones in the
 church cemetery, which remains today, may be seen behind the fence. 

In another enlargement of Gardner's Lutheran church image, four men, probably
 Union soldiers, sit in front of the church.

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What army borrowed from Private Barney Houser at Antietam

From Sharpsburg, Md., Barney Houser was a  private in the 1st Maryland Potomac Home  Brigade.

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When Barney Houser marched off from Sharpsburg, Md., to fight the Rebs, he probably didn't expect anyone to one day come calling to borrow an iron kettle, a skillet, four window blinds, four ladles .... and his house. But war has a way of turning lives upside down.

A private in the 1st Maryland Potomac Home Brigade from August 1861-August 1864, Houser lived in a house next to the German Reformed Church, a small, brick structure on Main Street. Md. After the Battle of Antietam, the building was one of three churches in town used as a hospital. Wounded were carried into the church on planks, laid across the pews, and operated on by surgeons, who tossed amputated limbs out the windows. At least seven soldiers from Connecticut died within the walls of the 40 x 80-foot building, including 16th Connecticut privates James Brooks of Stafford and Horace Lay of Hartford and 8th Connecticut private John Doolittle of Middletown.

Bob Eschbach, holding a copy of a photo of Private Barney Houser,
 lives next to Christ Reformed Church, which was used as a hospital 
after the Battle of Antietam. 

Hard-pressed to deal with the influx of patients at the German Reformed Church, Union medical personnel used Houser's home, just 15 feet across an alley from the church, to accommodate more wounded men. And they also borrowed a litany of items from the soldier's house.

Bob Eschbach, current owner of the residence, received the evidence several years when he gave a tour of the house to Houser's descendants, who traveled from Kansas to Sharpsburg to learn more about their ancestor. The family gave Eschbach copies of a wartime image of Houser and a receipt he received from the army for items borrowed from his home for use in the hospital next door. In all, 14 different items are listed, including two bed ticks ($3), four chairs ($2), two bedsteads ($6), one waiter (75 cents) and one Dutch oven ($1). (See copy below.)

Whether Houser received financial compensation from government for his war "contribution" is unknown.

Worship services are still held on Sunday at the German Reformed Church, now called Christ Reformed Church. The building was extensively renovated after the Civil War, thanks, in part, to donations from Connecticut veterans, who paid for a beautiful stained-glassed window that faces Main Street. As for Eschbach, he has no qualms about living next to the scene of horror and pain so long ago.

"People have to live somewhere," he said. A frequent visitor to the battlefield, Eschbach has lived in the house since 1993.

Private Barney Houser lived in this house in Sharpsburg during the Civil War. According to
 the current owner,  part of the house dates to the Revolutionary War.

A copy of the receipt Barney Houser received for items borrowed from his house
for use in the church hospital next door.

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Antietam panoramas: Sharpsburg's Main Street church

Connecticut Civil War veterans chipped in
 $400 in 1891 to purchase this stained-glass
 window for the  German Reformed Church.

I got up early last Wednesday morning to shoot this panorama of Main Street in Sharpsburg, Md., a town Norman  Rockwell should have put on his bucket list. Of particular interest to me is the Christ Reformed Church, the red-brick building toward the left of the image. Called the German Reform Church during the Civil War, it was one of three churches in town used as a Union hospital after Antietam.

During the past three months, I have been digging into the stories of some of the Connecticut soldiers who were patients in that church. One of those men was James Brooks, a 19-year-old private in the 16th Connecticut, who lay in no-man's land in farmer John Otto's cornfield for 40 hours before he was found by a Union burial crew. He initially was treated in Otto's barn, a makeshift field hospital, before he was transferred to the German Reformed Church, where he died on  Oct. 11, 1862. Brooks' body was returned to Connecticut and buried in a small cemetery in rural Willington under a gravestone that notes he died of  "six heavy wounds."

If you visit Sharpsburg, put a stop at the church on your to-do list, and arrange to go inside to check out the beautiful stained-glass window that faces Main Street. In 1891, Connecticut Antietam veterans donated that window in honor of their comrades who died at the battle. Below is a panorama of the inside of the church, shot with my iPhone 4.

The church suffered significant damage during the war and was remodeled in the 1890s. The blood-stained Civil War-era floorboards  were reportedly ripped out in the 1940s, although I have heard that some of the original floorboards remain. I'll try to confirm that on my next trip to Sharpsburg.  An aside:  Recent blog subject Barney Houser, a private in the 1st Maryland Potomac Home Brigade, lived in the house to the left of the church during the Civil War. Items borrowed from his house for use in the German Reformed Church hospital included an iron kettle, a skillet, four window blinds, four ladles and a Dutch oven.

Antietam: Six wounds meant death for James W. Brooks

Close-up of the front of the gravestone of  James W. Brooks, an 18-year-old private
 in the 16th Connecticut, who was mortally wounded at the Battle of Antietam.
Brooks is buried in tiny Moose Meadow Cemetery in Willington, Conn.

Brooks' weathered gravestone is difficult to read, but it notes near the bottom that he received
a funeral with military honor on Oct. 26, 1862, more than a month after Antietam.

James W. Brooks died at the German Reformed Church
in Sharpsburg, Md.

A wonder that he was still alive, James Willard Brooks lay on the field for at least 40 hours before burial crews found him after the Battle of Antietam. An 18-year-old private in the 16th Connecticut, Brooks suffered from six wounds, including severe wounds to his left arm and both legs during the fight in John Otto's cornfield. By early October 1862, the son of Sarah and James Brooks of Stafford had been moved to the German Reformed Church, where a makeshift field hospital had been set up in the small brick building on Sharpsburg's main street. Initially, the surgeon who treated Brooks was optimistic.

"Doing pretty well considering multiplicity of his wounds," the doctor wrote in a casebook the evening of Oct. 7. Two days later, he wrote that the teenager was "holding his own remarkably."

But on Oct. 11, Brooks was "failing rapidly" and "might die soon," according to the surgeon. The end came at 3 p.m. that day, eight days after Brooks' 19th birthday.

Two weeks later, he was given a military funeral in a cemetery in Willington, Conn. I visited Brooks' final resting place early this afternoon, navigating the back-country roads until I ended up at the interestingly named Moose Meadow Cemetery. Tilted slightly to the right, Brooks' 5-foot, gray marker may be found near the back of the cemetery, near an old stone wall. The tombstone says he died of "six heavy wounds."

No moose were seen during today's visit to Moose Meadow Cemetery in Willington, Conn.
No moose were harmed in the creation of this post.

Antietam: Church of misery for 16th Connecticut

Wounded soldiers, including many from the 16th Connecticut, were treated at the
 German Reformed Church (now called Christ Reform Church) on Main Street
 in Sharpsburg, Md.,  after the Battle of Antietam. Left, church
 as it appeared in the 1890s and today. 

Top: 8th Connecticut private John Doolittle's
 death on Oct. 10, 1862 was recorded 
 by a surgeon in the  case book shown 
in  middle photo.  George Chamberlain, 
 a private in the 16th Connecticut, 
was also treated at the German Reform
 Church in  Sharpsburg, Md. He died nearly 
three years after Antietam from a wound 
suffered at the battle.
(Top, bottom photos: Middlesex Historical Society)

In October 1894, Connecticut veterans of Antietam, most in their early 50s and 60s, made a pilgrimage to the battlefield where many of their comrades suffered and died three decades earlier.

On Oct. 11, the old soldiers toured the field, swapped stories, collected war relics and attended the dedication of monuments to the 8th, 11th, 14th and 16th Connecticut regiments. "All of the above indicated monuments stand upon the advance positions of the respective regiments, where our friends placed upon the altar of the nation their heavy tribute of blood," the itinerary for the trip noted. (1)

The festivities that evening, according to the trip itinerary, included "interesting exercises, an address, camp-fire talks, and music, at the Reformed Church courteously offered for our use." (2)

Ironically, that same church was a place of horror 32 years earlier.

Houses, barns and churches in the Sharpsburg area became makeshift field hospitals during and after the Battle of Antietam on Sept. 17. 1862. Many Connecticut soldiers were treated at the German Reformed Church, a small, brick building on Main Street a short distance from where Robert E. Lee held a council of war the night of the bloodiest day in American history. Wounded men were carried into the church on planks, laid across the pews, and operated on by surgeons, who tossed amputated limbs out the window. Parishioners aided the overtaxed doctors.

Soldiers from the 16th Connecticut, most of whom were wounded in farmer John Otto's cornfield about a mile and a half away, were treated at the German Reform Church well into October and November. In nearly indecipherable doctor's scrawl, surgeons E. McDonnell of the U.S. Volunteers and Truman Squire of the 89th New York detailed in a case book the treatment of those men, some of whom suffered from multiple -- and often ghastly -- wounds: (3)

Private Horace Lay, Company I, 16th Connecticut, Hartford: "Admitted to this hospital Oct. 5, 1862. Present condition (Oct. 6) fracture of left femur by a ball...

"...his thigh being quite small, would seem to invite the knife -- but I am sick today myself and cannot pursue action."

Lay's wife, Charlotte, traveled to Sharpsburg and was present when her husband died on Nov. 16, 1862. (4)

Private George Chamberlain, Company G, 16th Connecticut, Middletown: "Present condition: Wound from the entrance of a musket ball a little below the bend of the right knee ... he keeps the leg flexed at a right angle and is careful not to move the joint for reason of pain."

His mother, Mary Ann, traveled to Sharpsburg to help nurse her son back to health, and both of them witnessed the death of Horace Lay, an acquaintance of George's. (5) Chamberlain, 18 years old when he enlisted, was discharged from the army because of disability on April 1, 1863. He died of his Antietam wound on May 11, 1865.

Private John Loveland, Company C, 16th Connecticut, Hartford: "Lost more blood in the operation than I could have wished and the patient sank quite low after the removal of the limb and was long in coming from the influence of the chloroform. But tonight he has good pulse, good color, is rational, feels hopeful and the case appears ... promising."

Loveland died on Oct. 16, 1862. He left behind a wife, Anna, whom he married on Jan. 15, 1860.

Private William W. Porter, Company H, 16th Connecticut, Glastonbury: "Oct. 8: evening: Amputated the thigh this morning. Patient stood the operation well and is comfortable."

"Oct 9: Pulse quite feeble ... Stump looks well. ... Case now critical."

William Wallace Porter, a private in the 
16th Connecticut, was mortally wounded at 
Antietam. He is buried at ancient Green Cemetery
 in Glastonbury, Conn.

"10th Oct. morning: Died at 2 1/2 this morning."

Porter's father traveled to the battlefield and returned to Connecticut with his son's body. William Porter is buried in ancient Green Cemetery in Glastonbury next to his brother, John, who died in action near Petersburg, Va.

Private James Brooks, Company I, 16th Connecticut, Stafford: "He has six wounds...

"The boy is emaciated but has an appetite and there is hope."

"Oct. 7 evening: Doing pretty well considering multiplicity of his wounds."

"Oct. 9 morn.: Holding his own remarkably."


"Oct. 11th: Failing rapidly and might die soon."

 "Oct. 11th 3 p.m.: Just died."

Eager to memorialize their comrades and honor the good people of Sharpsburg who came to their aid, veterans of the 16th Connecticut graciously donated two large stained-glass windows (cost: $400) and $100 to the church when it was re-dedicated on June 14, 1891. 

The church, now called Christ Reformed Church, has been remodeled several times, and the bloody floorboards were reportedly ripped out in the 1940s. Unaware of the pain and suffering that took place within the building's walls, most battlefield tourists today rarely stop by the little church on Main Street, a scene of misery nearly 150 years ago.

(1) The Joint Excursion of Connecticut Regiments, Oct. 11, 1894
(2) Ibid
(3) Report Surgical Cases in German Reform Church Hospital, Sharpsburg, Md., 1862
(4) Widow's army pension document, Dec. 22, 1862 and Feb. 27, 1864.
(5) Widow's pension affidavit, Nov.10, 1863

His surgeon noted that Private James Brooks of the 16th Connecticut was wounded
six times at Antietam. Brooks, from Stafford, Conn.,  died on Oct. 11, 1862.
He was 19 years old. (CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

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MORE ON ANTIETAM: Read my extensive thread on the battle.