Another of those distressful necessities of war occurred on withdrawing from the Wilderness. Wounded men of the Fifth and Sixth corps had already been left on the site of the hospitals near the old gold mine mills, and now hundreds more from every corps were abandoned for want of sufficient transportation. Let it not be thought that the Army of the Potomac was deficient in ambulances. Our hospital train was immense, yet insufficient for such an emergency as the present. To have provided a train sufficient for such a time, would have been to incumber the army with an enormous establishment, which would so interfere with its movements as to defeat the very object in view. The present was one of those terrible but unavoidable contingencies which must sometimes occur in war.
Trains had returned and brought away some of the wounded left at the old gold mine, but many were still there; and now, again, as we loaded ambulances and army wagons to their utmost capacity, making a train of many miles in extent, some two hundred of the wounded of our Sixth corps were left upon the ground. It was, indeed, a sickening thought that these noble fellows, who had nobly fallen in their country's cause, must be abandoned to the enemy, many of them, perhaps the majority of them, to die in their hands. All communication with their friends at home hopelessly cut off, and with no expectation of any but the roughest treatment from their enemies, it was a sad prospect for the unfortunate ones. Medical officers from each corps were directed to remain and care for those thus left behind, and a limited supply of rations and medicines were also left. Surgeon Phillips, of the Third Vermont, and Assistant Surgeon Thompson, of the Seventy-seventh New York, were the detail to remain behind from the Second division. They stayed with our wounded among the rebels for several weeks, faithfully ministering to their wants, until nearly all had been removed to Richmond, when, one day, learning that those remaining were to be sent south on the following day, they made their escape by night. By traveling throughout the night and hiding in the woods by day, they made their way across the Rapidan, and finally reached Washington in safety.