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“The poor fellows...could not have anticipated such a dreadful slaughter as they have since awfully witnessed"
US representative Samuel Sherwood on Lundy’s aftermath
Further Reading
The Battle of Lundy's Lane
Background to the Battle of Lundy's Lane
The Americans at Lundy's Lane
The British at Lundy's Lane
Two Accounts From The Battle
The Aftermath of Lundy's Lane
William Dunlop Remembers a Tragic Scene
Books
Where Right and Glory Lead! The Battle of Lundy's Lane, 1814
Donald E Graves
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Surgeon William Dunlop Tends to the Wounded
William
“Tiger” Dunlop was a 21 year-old assistant surgeon with
the 89th British Foot. After the battle at Lundy’s Lane, he single-handedly
looked after hundreds of wounded from both armies. This is his account:
"Upon inquiring where my wounded were to be put, I was shown a ruinous fabric, built of logs, called Butler's Barracks, from having been built during the Revolutionary War by Butler's Rangers for their temporary accommodation. Nothing could be worse constructed for an hospital for wounded men - not that it was open to every wind that blew, for at midsummer in Canada that is rather an advantage; but there was a great want of room, so that many had to be laid on straw on the floor, and these had the best of it, for their comrades were put into berths one above another as in a transport or packet, where it was impossible to get round them to dress their wounds, and their removal gave them excruciating pain...
"Waggon after waggon arrived, and before mid-day I found myself in charge of two hundred and twenty wounded, including my own Regiment, prisoners and militia, with no one to assist me but my hospital sargeant, who, luckily for me, was a man of sound sense and great experience, who made a most able second; but with all this the charge was too much for us, and many a poor fellow had to submit to amputation whose limb might have been preserved had there been only time to take reasonable care of it. But under the circumstances of the case it was necessary to convert a troublesome wound into a simple one, or to lose the patient's life from want of time to pay him proper attention.
"I never underwent such fatigue as I did for the first week at Butler's Barracks, The weather was intensely hot, the flies were in myriads, and lighting on the wounds, deposited their eggs, so that maggots were bred in a few hours, producing dreadful irritations, so that long before I could go round dressing the patients, it was necessary to begin again; and as I had no assistant but my sarjeant, our toil was incessant. for two days and two nights, I never sat down... On the morning of the third day, however, I fell asleep on my feet, with my arm embracing the post of one of the berths. It was found impossible to awaken me, so a truss of clean straw was laid on the floor, on which I was deposited and an hospital rug thrown over me. and there I slept soundly for five hours without ever turning.
"There is hardly on the face of the earth a less enviable situation that that of an Army Surgeon after a battle - worn out and fatigued in body and mind, surrounded by suffering, pain and misery, much of which he knows it is not in his power to heal or even to assuage. While the battle lasts these all pass unnoticed, but they come before the medical man afterwards in all their sorrow and horror, stripped of all the excitement of the 'heady fight'."
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