Wounded at Gettysburg
by Lt. Henry E. Shepherd, 43^rd North Carolina

Lt. Henry E. Shepherd

When the Battle of Gettysburg was fought, I was a boy of nineteen, fresh from the University of Virginia, full of vigor, enthusiasm, robust in health, and radiant with hope. I marched from Fredericksburg to Gettysburg without a suggestion of weariness. The trip had rather the air of an excursion, than the dismal seriousness of "grim visaged war". 

I was with Ewell’s corps during the three days at Gettysburg, and belonged to Daniel’s brigade, Rodes’ division, of that corps. During the first two days I escaped without any greater calamity than being once or twice covered with the dirt ploughed up by shot and shell. It was on the third day that my disaster occurred. My brigade had been detached from its division, and sent forward about five o’clock on the morning of July 3^rd, to reinforce Gen. Edward Johnson, in an attack on the Federal position on Culp’s Hill, the extreme right of Meade’s army. About ten o’clock on the morning of that fateful day I was shot down, a ball having passed through the flank of my right knee; just grazing the bone. In a moment everything was transformed into darkness. I retained consciousness enough to sit down under a large tree, and was soon picked up and carried off to an improvised hospital, some distance in the rear of our line of battle. 

Once or twice shell fell almost at my feet. By a merciful Providence they did not explode, but buried themselves harmlessly in the earth. My wound was dressed, and I was removed to our principal hospital beyond the range of Federal fire. The surgeons, Federal and Confederate, pronounced my escape from amputation most remarkable. I lay for three months prostrate in Frederick, Maryland, and in Baltimore, to which points I was removed by the Federal authorities, into whose hands I fell after the retreat of General Lee’s army across the Potomac River. 

I was captured with our ambulance train on the night of July 4^th, in the mountain passes between Monterey, Pennsylvania and Hagerstown, Maryland. My experience was most thrilling and memorable. In its desperate attempt to escape, our train drove through the contending lines of cavalry - the one striving to capture, the other to protect. I was utterly helpless and disabled, and the ghastly recollections of that gloomy, stormy night, when I was driven through the lines of battle - unable to raise my hand, and in momentary peril of my life - can never be dimmed or effaced. 

Since the close of the Civil War I have repeatedly visited Gettysburg, surveyed the ground, and endeavored to fix localities accurately. I was able to identify the precise spot, I think, at which I was wounded on Culp’s Hill; the blacksmith shop, which was my first hospital, and, of course, the creek, over which I was carried in the arms of a stalwart Confederate soldier, who bore me off as if I had been a mere child. My reminiscences of Gettysburg might be expanded indefinitely, as they have all the freshness and tenacity that characterize a youthful memory. I can recall the struggle on the railroad track, July 1^st - the "Tapeworm"- when the blue and gray lines almost melted into each other, and the unsurpassed brilliancy of the pyrotechnic display on the evening of July 2^nd, as the opposing batteries illumined with their radiance the spires of the quiet town, which seemed to nestle between the confronting lines. It was on this day that one of my company was struck fairly in the head by a shell, and, with no sign or word, lay motionless in death. On the day before, a young officer was shot directly in the throat while advancing on Seminary Hill, and with the simple utterance, "God have mercy!" he fell asleep.

Thirty years have passed, and I have seen, like Ulysses, many phases of life and changeful experiences; but the memory of Gettysburg is as clear, vigorous, and undimmed as it was on that July morning in 1863, when I heard the faint, hardly perceptible sound of distant cannon and rushed on with my command to engage in the most celebrated struggle of the American Civil War.