“Look here… I’m killed” part 2

We will continue with the Turnmire/Triplett story. The authors jump ahead to the battle of Chancellorsville. They write:

“During the fight, on Saturday morning they took our brigade from the front and marched us off in files of four. We marched until three or four o’clock in the evening, then they stopped us in the road in the rear of the enemy. There was a skirt of timber between us and the enemy, and they formed us in line of battle and gave us orders to be perfectly quiet, until we got in plain view of the enemy before we fired. When we got in view of the enemy they seemed to be having a picnic, some were cooking, some were skinning a beef and some playing, the first volley we shot routed them, and we followed them until dark, and then we laid down in line of battle. Sunday morning the officers came and called us to attention. We heard the enemy building breast-works all night and we charged them Sunday morning.
“When we got to the breast-works there was only one man left that we could see. I took him prisoner and started to the rear with him, when a stray ball struck me in the right hip. I went about fifteen steps before I fell and I have not seen that prisoner since… Monday evening the Dr. came and cut the ball out of my side. He wanted me to take chloroform, but I refused to do so, and he said “You cannot do without it.” I said, “Dr. you do not know what I can stand. I stood for it to go in there and I can stand for it to be taken out.”

Peter Turnmire would not return to the army until November-December 1864. He was captured five months later at the battle of the Wilderness, and spent the rest of the war in a POW camp.

George Triplett was wounded at Ox Hill on September 1, 1862, and was later discharged the following February due to disability from his wounds.