General Albert Sidney Johnston's death at Shiloh
Isham Harris, staff, General Albert Johnston, and the former governor of Tennessee.
General Johnston had told Harris to pass on an order to Col Statham to charge a Union battery. When Harris rode back to Johnston to report, Johnston “sank down in his saddle leaning over to the left. I instantly put my left arm around him pulling him to me saying ‘General, are you wounded?’ He said ‘yes, and I fear seriously.’ Capt Wickham…and I lifted him from his horse, laid him upon the ground. I took his head in my lap. He never spoke after answering my question though continued to breathe for 25 or 30 minutes.”
Lieutenant George W. Baylor, staff, General Johnston
One of Johnston’s men told Baylor that Johnston had been seriously, if not fatally wounded. Baylor immediately rode to Johnston’s side. “We soon joined as sad a group as ever assembled on a battle field or around a dying bed. General Johnston was such a lovable man that his staff as well as his soldiers worshipped him; and his staff seemed stupefied with grief at the great calamity. He was not seriously wounded—a six-shooter navy ball or buckshot had severed an artery just below the right knee, and he had slowly bled to death. There was a little stream of blood that had run along the ground and formed a little puddle six feet from where he was lying. A simple torque made with a stick and handkerchief would have stopped the flow of blood until medical aid could have been had.”
From the Voices of the Civil War: Shiloh, Time-Life Books
Civil War and Reconstruction >> Civil War >> Battles >> Shiloh
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