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Under the guns

Chapter 56: A YOUNG NURSE AT GETTYSBURG.
By Annie Wittenmyer
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About This Book

An army nurse and sanitary agent recalls her Civil War service, describing visits to camps and hospitals, nursing the sick and dying, organizing supplies and evacuations, and enduring battlefield perils and severe weather. The memoir presents vivid anecdotes of tending wounded soldiers, coordinating with military and relief officials, and relying on women’s networks for support. Practical challenges such as transport, overcrowded hospitals, and communication difficulties are set beside personal reflections on compassion, sacrifice, and the daily work of medical relief during the conflict.

A YOUNG NURSE AT GETTYSBURG.

LITTLE SADIE BUSHMAN, who was not quite ten years old at the time of the battle of Gettysburg, proved herself a little heroine. Mr. and Mrs. Bushman, learning that the battle would rage in all probability on or near their premises, sent this child with her brother to her grandmother’s, two miles away, while the parents gathered up the other children and undertook to follow.

Sadie took hold of her brother’s hand, and they hurried on as fast as their feet could carry them. But it was not long before their pathway led them into the thick of the fight along Seminary Ridge. The roar of the artillery was continuous, but they could not retreat. There came a blinding flash and a deafening roar. A shell whizzed past them. A gray-haired officer seized the children, and hurried them down the ridge toward their destination.

But scarcely less danger awaited them there, as their grandmother’s house and yard was converted into a hospital. The first work of the child when she reached this place was to hold a cup of water to a soldier’s lips while one of his legs was sawed off.

She was separated from her parents two weeks before they knew she was alive, but all that time she was ministering to the wounded soldiers. She carried soup and broth, and fed those who could not help themselves. She worked under the orders of the surgeons, and was furnished with supplies by the Christian Commission as long as the hospitals were kept open in Gettysburg. She is now a married woman—Sadie Bushman Junkerman—and lives near Oakland, Cal.; but the scenes of the Gettysburg battle years ago are vividly remembered by her.