Cannonball

Here is another letter written by “McE” from the York U.S. Army Hospital during the Civil War. This is courtesy of Jim Moss and is adapted with his permission from his new book, A History of the Civil War as Presented in the Church Advocate. This was written on January 15, 1863.

“There are at present about nine hundred and fifty patients in the York Hospital. They represent almost every form of suffering and disease. They certainly exhibit a terrible commentary upon the horrors and wickedness of this rebellion. Some in the full tide of health and manhood, maimed and lamed for life. Others grown gray and old before their time, smitten with disease, which will in probability render their life one of lingering wretchedness, until death steps in to their relief.

Here we meet with one bowed to the earth by an affection of the spine, his youthful face no longer gazing heavenward, but looking downward, like the man upon whom the weight of years has accumulated, in search of a grave where he can rid himself of the burden; and there again, another raising his dim and consumptive eyes to the golden sun as it sinks in the horizon, whose beauty and grandeur will soon dawn for him no more.

These men are the sufferers of this rebellion. Southern treason has robbed them of home, health, and happiness, and in the morning of the resurrection they will bear testimony against the traitor horde, for whose sins, in this world, there is no adequate punishment.”