Tokens of Dying Love (Part Three)

This is the third of four installments entitled "Tokens of Dying Love"--a reflection on the death Of Captain Charles W. Billings, Co. C, 20th Maine Regiment, at Gettysburg, PA, in July 1863. Part Two, on Billings' life prior to the Battle of Gettysburg, may be found here.

Billings was brought to the field hospital of the Fifth Corps on the farm of Michael Fiscel, a mile and a half southeast of Little Round Top. Along with the "worst cases" in the corps, among whom were his own men, he was treated on the floor of an old barn. Historian Glen LaFantasie graphically describes the scene in the days immediately following the battle:

The hospital was bedlam and slaughterhouse combined. Piles of amputated limbs could be seen everywhere, attracting flies and giving off a sickening odor. Only some of the wounded could be comfortably accommodated on hay beds in the buildings and in several tents; many of the suffering men lay in long lines under the hot sun with no protection over them at all. The moans of the wounded blocked out most of the other sounds around the Fiscel farm, except for the occasional screams of men who could not bear their pain any longer. Rain storms that came after the battle put the men in more agony, turning the hay into damp straw and drenching the wounded soldiers to the skin. East of the barn, in a field overlooking a stream, the men who died from their wounds were buried in shallow graves that gave off an eerie phosphorescent glow at night. [1]

Lying in the hay, his femur shattered above the knee by a minie ball, Billings looked on as around him his men died of their wounds. The sight so affected him that he became deranged--a "raving maniac"-- requiring several attendants to subdue him. He was brought to a room by himself, away from the other mangled and dying men, and in time he rallied. One of the corps' surgeons went in to assess his condition. Departing from Billings, the surgeon spoke to a chaplain from the Christian Commission, the Rev. Robert J. Parvin, telling him that Billings would not live. If the Captain had had a primary amputation--within forty-eight hours--he might have had a chance of surviving.

Parvin went in sit with Billings and held his hand. The Captain asked the chaplain what the surgeon had said.

"He thinks it hardly possible that you will live," Parvin replied.

"My wife, Chaplain, have you heard from her since your message yesterday?"

Parvin said that he had not, that the telegraph lines were in heavy usage by the government.

"We hope she will be here," he replied.

"Does the surgeon say that I cannot live long, Chaplain?"

"Yes; but you are a Christian man, Captain Billings?"

"Yes, Chaplain, I have no fears...my hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ. I have tried to serve him in the army, and he will not forsake me now. I would like to see my wife..." he continued, as his thoughts turned to Ellen.

'Well, Captain, if you have anything to say, will you give the message to me?"

So he gave Parvin his knapsack and sword and the message he wished to be conveyed if she came. 

"Now, don't stay longer with me. Go and minister to the boys, and run in here as you can to read a few words of Scripture to me, and kneel down and pray with me."

Billings then asked: "Could you have my body embalmed and sent home? I lost my money on the field."

"Certainly, Captain" Parvin replied, " Give no further thought about that."

The Chaplain later wrote: "Not another time did he refer to it, but he passed away a dying Christian, triumphing over all the horrors of war, over all the sad circumstances surrounding him."

Billings died at eleven o'clock on the morning of July 15th. Later that afternoon, his body was delivered to the embalmers. At ten o'clock that night, as Parvin sat in his tent writing letters, he heard a knock at his door. A civilian gentleman walked in.

"Is Captain Billings, of the 20th Maine, here? I am his brother. I have his wife with me. I have buoyed her up this long way with the hope that we would find the Captain in good condition. Where is he?"

"You have not brought the Captain's wife out here with you tonight?" Parvin replied.

"No, I left her in town for tonight."

"It is well; the body of your brother was sent to the embalmers at five o'clock this afternoon!"

Billings' brother was overcome with grief. "I cannot tell her! I cannot trust myself to tell her, or even see her again, tonight! I have brought her all the way to Gettysburg, and now you must, you must tell her all!"

Parvin concluded: "And so our duty was to see his wife, and to deliver to her the messages; and the tokens of dying love of her husband, and speak to her words of comfort in the name of the Lord! His body was carried on to the State of Maine, to repose with those of his kindred there."

[2]

(to be continued...)

[1] Glen LaFantasie, Gettysburg Requiem: The Life and Lost Causes of Confederate Colonel William C. Oates (Oxford University Press, USA, 2006)

[2] The Rev. Robert J. Parvin, from remarks given at a meeting of the Christian Commission,: Washington, D.C; February, 1864; Frank Moore, Anecdotes, Poetry, and Incidents of the War: North and South. 1860-1865  da5wx8p7zf

Tokens of Dying Love (Part Two)

This is the second of four installments entitled "Tokens of Dying Love"--a reflection on the death of  Captain Charles W. Billings, Co C, 20th Maine Volunteers, at Gettysburg, PA in July 1863. Part One, on the Battle for Vincent's Spur on Little Round Top, may be found here.

Charles W. Billings was thirty-seven years old when he was promoted to Captain of Co. C, 20th Regiment Maine Volunteers. Prior to his official mustering in on September 1, 1862, Billings resided in the agricultural and manufacturing community of Clinton, Kennebec County, Maine, some thirty-two miles northeast of the state capital at Augusta. 

By the standards of the day, Billings was reasonably well educated, having attended a private academy in the neighboring community of Benton. Listed on the Descriptive Rolls of the regiment as a "lumberman," he also owned a half-share in a carding and fulling mill. He was active in his community, having once served as town clerk, as well as on the school committee. At the time of Lincoln's call for 300,000 more troops in July, 1862, he was a town selectman.

Billings and Ellen Hunter were married by a justice of the peace on August 18, 1849, just after her sixteenth birthday. He was twenty-four. Their first daughter, Isadore, was born six months later, in February, 1850. A second daughter, Alice, was born in September, 1856 and died four years later, in November, 1860. Their last child, Lizzie, was born in April, 1860.

In May, 1863, the 20th Maine sat out the battle of Chancellorsville, having received a vaccine for smallpox that caused an outbreak of the disease among the rank and file. Those healthy enough to report for duty were called upon to guard the telegraph line that ran from headquarters at Falmouth, VA to the United States Ford on the Rappahannock River.

On May 19th, from his regiment's camp near Falmouth, Billings sat down to "write a few lines" to his father back home in Maine. Referring coolly to the Union defeat at Chancellorsville, he wrote: "Our last engagement was not so fortunate for our arms as we would have wished or as we expected."He was concerned about the diminishment of the army, especially through the expiration of two-year enlistments. Remarking that "the rebels have every available man in their ranks," he launched into an earnest patriotic call to arms:

Now let the north send out his reserves, there are enough to spare, let them come. Who would not jump to serve his country now that everything is promising. It must and will be done. The cause of God & humanity demand it. We must either conquer or be conquered, no other alternative is presented. Shall we subdue the Rebels and secure liberty to our country? Or shall we give up this contest, and let the sword of despotism & ignorance sweep over our fair country? Obliterating at once our national existence, and all our fond and long cherished hopes of seeing our beloved country continue to advance in all that is good and great? What but an emphatic & determined "no never" should be our every answer? Would to God all our people could see it in its true light. Would that those politicians who for their own selfish advance in power are ready to sacrifice our country, might be brought to shame & the punishment they so richly deserve.

Later in May, the regiment moved camp from Falmouth to guard the United States Ford some fifteen miles upriver.  On Sunday, My 31st, Billings again wrote his father, encouraging him to write "once a week" as "Ellen is not much of a hand to write news outside the family."Across the Rappahannock, the enemy could be seen "marching and countermarching," perhaps meant as a ruse to shield Lee's preparations for his army's imminent move north. Billings wrote disapprovingly of "our boys" wading out and meeting Confederate pickets mid-stream, even swimming across the ford to talk with the enemy. In a milder tone, he concluded the letter: "Well Father it is almost time to close the mail so I must draw this to a close so that you will get it one day earlier, we have had preaching today, a good sermon. I have a prayer meeting to night. Share love with the family. Your affectionate son, Charles W. Billings."

Fourteen days later, the 20th Maine Regiment, with the 3rd Brigade, departed from the fords. Joining the rest of the Fifth Corps of the Army of the Potomac, they commenced two weeks hard marching northward, under a burning hot June sun. Lee's army was on a roughly parallel course, just on the other side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. They would meet at the crossroads town of Gettysburg, a day's march over the Maryland border into Pennsylvania. Billings, and the other men of his regiment, would be tested in battle on a hill known as Little Round Top.

to be continued...

(20th Maine Regimental Flag)