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Federal (USV)

Private

Isaac Etchells

Home State: Pennsylvania

Branch of Service: Infantry

Unit: 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry

Before Antietam

From Philadelphia, he enlisted and mustered as Private, Company D, 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry on 10 August 1861.

On the Campaign

He was wounded in action on 17 September 1862 ...

... by a round ball, which entered the left side of the chest in front, three inches above and to the left of the nipple, passing completely through. He expectorated blood immediately and freely, but it soon ceased, and never recurred. On the 24th day the wounds had closed, and he was sitting up, but he continued to suffer from pain and a sense of oppression over the whole of his left side.

The rest of the War

He was admitted to a US Army hospital in Frederick, MD on 25 September and transferred out on 28 September, probably to Philadalphia.

After the War

He was Commander of Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Post #10 in Philadelphia in 1889.

References & notes

Service information from Bates.1. Hospital details from the Patient List,2 as Isaac Etchills. The quote above from Frank Hastings Hamilton's Treatise on Military Surgery and Hygiene (1865, online), as Isaac Etchell.

More on the Web

A watercolor called Gunshot wound of the lung by Augustus Pohlers - of Isaac Etchells - is in the collection of the Otis Historical Archives, National Museum of Health and Medicine [pdf finding aid].

Notes

1   Bates, Samuel Penniman, History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-65, Harrisburg: State of Pennsylvania, 1868-1871  [AotW citation 22155]

2   National Museum of Civil War Medicine, and Terry Reimer, Frederick Patient List, Published 2018, first accessed 17 September 2018, <http://www.civilwarmed.org/explore/primary-sources/databases/frederickpatient/>, Source page: patient #4.548  [AotW citation 22156]