Thursday, March 12, 2015

Diary of Margaret Junkin Preston: July 22, 1862

Yesterday, while we sat at dinner, who should step into the dining room but Frank Preston! Poor fellow! it was a piteous thing to see him with but one arm; but what a relief to see him again, and have him safe, when we were mourning him as perhaps ill and carried to Fort Delaware! He looks right well, though he had to endure the pain of a second amputation, which was done by the Federal surgeons, from whom he says he received skilful treatment and true kindness. They would not parole him, so a lady who lives outside the pickets, about eight or ten miles from Winchester, came in and took him to her house in her carriage, no one challenging them: there he remained two days; when two other sick prisoners, whom she had sent her carriage for in the same way, were seized and taken back. As soon as this was known to her, she sent Frank on in her own carriage, immediately, twenty miles (after night), lest he too should be sent for: and so he escaped. He was confined to bed several weeks with his wound. Two or three hours before Frank came, Willy P. started to join his company, the Liberty Hall Volunteers; so the brothers just missed each other.

SOURCE: Elizabeth Preston Allan, The Life and Letters of Margaret Junkin Preston, p. 145-6

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