Coming Home At Last

On October 7th, ‘65 I got my discharge and started for home.  Had to go down to Hannibal, Mo., then across by rail to St. Joe then up the Missouri River by steamboat to Iowa, so I got a chance to see more of the southern aristocracy and the more I saw of them the more I hated them.  They were making desperate efforts to get pay for liberated slaves.  Before I got home the other soldier boys were all discharged and at home working hard to repair the damage of the war and get ready for winter.  So there were none to greet me, only my mother, sisters and a few friends.  Now I must paddle my own canoe.  The little $8 pension was payable in paper currency worth forty cents on the dollar and I must go to work.

My brother-in-law, Cutler, had sold his farm and was ready to start for Missouri, and I decided to go with him.  So we went with wagons and teams down to Clay County, Mo., where we found an old saw mill for sale cheap, and as I was a good saw mill man and knew nothing about soft jobs, we bought the old mill.  Although my legs were badly disabled I had the finest pair of lily white hands  that ever ’crossed the pike’, so I lit into hard work, never counted the blisters, but they were plenty at first.  We run the old mill for all it was worth and were making some money, but our troubles were not all ended yet.

One night after we had finished a hard day’s work in the mill and going home to rest, there came three bandits who shoved their pistols in our faces and took our pocketbooks.  They got about $20 from me and probably twice as much from Cutler, then went to Cutler’s house and ransacked it from end to end, threatening all the family if they did not dig up more money.  I told my sister not to get scared and she held her nerve very well, and there was over $500 secreted in the house which they didn’t find.  There was a tin can sitting on a shelf nearly full of silver coin with a few old screws and nuts on top and they looked in it and left it.  Then they took a few suits of the best clothes in the house and left.

They caught us totally unarmed and unprepared for such an emergency so had it all their own way.  I presume two of them were Jesse and Frank James and I have no idea who the third man was.  After this little experience we got arms for every man and boy of us, but they never tried it again.  If they had there would have been a shooting match.

Soon after this I had another mishap while working at the mill.  My wooden leg suddenly slipped on some ice and forced my knee joint to bend tearing some ligaments loose where they had adhered to the bone.  It hurt worse than when it was first shot.  The blood which had no outlet turned black.  The doctor was called in and by faithful application of poultices for a few days the inflammation was subdued and in two weeks I was able to go back to work, and from this time on the knee would bend further which was a great help and just what was needed.  From this time on I was able to do good work and made a good living for myself and my good mother and she lived a happy and contented life to the good old age of 90 years.  My hair came back to it’s original color and remained so for thirty years.

This is the end of James Farley Lambson’s story, except for a summary paragraph which I posted about this time last year, and a poem of which I posted a few stanzas.  You can read these there, or in the Our Lambson Family pp230-231.  The whole history which I have been posting in segments for the past several weeks can be read at pp225-231.

  

Kentucky, Keokuk, and More Leg Procedures

In the fall we were moved to Louisville, Ky., where we were placed in large wooden buildings.  While there my hair all came out and left me bald, then it grew in very slowly and was gray.  My amputated leg was healed up but the right leg was still very sore and lame.  I tried hard to walk, but could not.

Here the health of the men was far better than it was at Nashville, and there were but few deaths.  Late in the fall the Iowa men were sent to Keokuk, Iowa where we were placed in the medical college.  In January, 1865, Dr. M. K. Taylor in presence of his class of medical students placed me upon the operating table and removed a fragment of bone four inches long which should have been removed long before.  Several smaller pieces had been removed from time to time, but this largest one was left to the last; then the leg got better so I could walk on crutches, but was still very lame.

Then in March’65 gangrene  started in the wound and reached to the bone and about an inch in diameter..  I was laid up for the repair and couldn’t eat while the gangrene burned out with nitric acid.  This was very painful.  I had to lie on my right side to keep the acid in the wound and when I got so tired I could not endure it any longer I turned on my back and the acid run out and burned to skin about two inches around the wound.  After a few days the dead flesh came out and the wound began to heal up once more but it wouldn’t heal up entirely, a small matter showing that there was still some obstruction in it.

In June the men with amputated legs were sent to Chicago to have wooden legs fitted.  In August Dr. Merriman opened my leg to try and remove the obstruction and succeeded in removing about one-half of a large bullet one side of which showed creases of the gun; the other side split off and gone.  This showed that the bullet had split in two  on the bone, one half going on through the other half lodged in the bone.  While the doctor was digging out that bullet I sat in a chair watching the operation.  The pain was nothing compared with what I had to endure many times before.  After this the wound healed slowly.  We got our wooden legs and were sent to Davenport, Iowa.  While at Davenport my health and strength improved and I did considerable work, cooking, washing, cleaning house, etc. But my hair was still gray and the knee would bend but little, so I could not step over anything more than four inches high.

Next Week: Coming Home at Last

Further to the Rear:

Dangers of Recovery in Pre-Disinfectant Times

Of corse it was terribly tiresome to have to lie in one position day and night for two or three weeks.  I had to lie on the flat of my back the first two weeks.  The only change I could make  was to sit up a few minutes as often as I could.  And when my back began to get sore they gave me an old worn-out linen table cloth which the ladies of the Christian Commission had given.  I tore off a piece which placed next to the skin was far pleasanter than the sweaty cotton shirt and sheet, and prevented the bed sore on my back, thus perhaps saving my life.  After two weeks I could turn and lie on my side a short time.  About the middle of June we were loaded into a hospital train and shipped to Nashville, Tennessee.  The stretchers upon which we rode were hung upon rubber bands, a simple yet effective way of giving us a smooth, pleasant ride.  At Nashville, we were placed in a large hospital tent, about twenty cots to a tent.  All bad cases were placed in the same tent together, so we had several deaths, but not as bad as we had in Resaca.  To try to describe these cases would make a long story.  One bright young man with a thigh amputation was a hemorrhagic (bleeder).  The femoral artery had sloughed off and been retied a little further up until the last tie was in his body and it could not be tied any further.  Then when it sloughed off again and commenced to bleed, the nurse placed his thumb upon it and held it while the young man dictated his last letter home to his parents, then the thumb was reluctantly removed and the man went to sleep.

Another whose father had come to see him wanted to live and wouldn’t believe he must die, but while his father was on his knees beside him he passed away.  I don’t know how many died in this tent.  There was some erysipelas, gangrene and some camp diarrhea and contagion which would be sure death if I caught it.  At this critical time, God, or good fortune gave me a good friend who no doubt saved my life.  Old Man Jones was a Tennessee Union man.  The rebels drove him from his home and he volunteered for the Union, being rather old for field service they put him in the hospital to help care for the wounded.  He could neither read nor write but his wife could write a little in the old grammar.  He tried several men to read and answer her letters for him but none of them would do it right.  We had captured bushels of old rebel letters and I had read hundreds of them, not knowing I was learning a valuable lesson.

Then when Old Man Jones called on me to read and answer his letters I did it so well and easy that he jumped at the conclusion that I was the smartest and best man on the job, and was ready and willing to do all he could for me.  I explained to him the dangers of contagion, and he went up town and got me a wash dish and towels, etc., so I didn’t have to use anything that had been used by others, and so I managed to live through the hot summer with men dying every day all around me.  I believe the careful assistance of this good old man saved my life and I have never been able to pay him for his kindness.

Next: Kentucky and More Leg Procedures