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

Diary of Margaret Junkin Preston: May 30, 1862

Today brought letters from the surgeon and others, in reference to poor Frank; our worst fears about amputation realized! the arm was taken off at the shoulder on Tuesday morning; the elbow joint was too much injured, in the opinion of three surgeons, to make it safe to try to save it. Pray God his life may be spared! this is a sad misfortune, but if he only lives through it, what a mercy compared with what multitudes of others suffer! The letters speak of Frank's great fortitude and composure, even under excessive pain; indeed of his gallant bearing throughout the whole thing. What life-long trial and sorrow this dreadful war will impose upon thousands of families! How long, Lord, how long, shall we thy guilty people who deserve all this fierce wrath, continue to suffer it!

SOURCE: Elizabeth Preston Allan, The Life and Letters of Margaret Junkin Preston, p. 142-3

Diary of Margaret Junkin Preston: May 28, 1862

This has been a day of painful suspense about poor Frank; the mail brought us no letter; but one was received by some one else, which says that Frank's arm (in the opinion of the surgeon who spoke to the writer) may probably have to be amputated.

SOURCE: Elizabeth Preston Allan, The Life and Letters of Margaret Junkin Preston, p. 141-2

Diary of Alexander G. Downing: Saturday, May 23, 1863

We started this morning at daylight and marched five miles to General McPherson's headquarters at the center of the army. Here we lay until 4 o'clock in the afternoon, when we marched back to our old place on the extreme left. The rebels again commenced to shell us, but the shells went over our heads. The Eleventh Iowa went on picket. Our men are shelling the rebels from all sides, and they are falling back behind their fortifications. When passing the headquarters of the Seventeenth Army Corps today, I saw a most dreadful sight at the field hospital; there was a pile, all that a six-mule team could haul, of legs and arms thrown from the amputating tables in a shed nearby, where the wounded were being cared for.

Source: Alexander G. Downing, Edited by Olynthus B., Clark, Downing’s Civil War Diary, p. 117