“The Confederacy Had No Truer Soldier”

Parham Morgan Buford passed away on August 15, 1863, as a prisoner of war at Camp Letterman General Hospital.  He held on for 43 days after being wounded on July 3rd during Pickett’s Charge at the Battle of Gettysburg and was less than six weeks away from his 21st birthday.  The cause of death was amputation, likely from infection which followed.

Several dates were documented for the date of death on various military records; however, August 15th is most frequently found which is why the great-great-grandson of Parham’s sister (this blogger) selected it for Parham’s grave marker.  Some military records indicate that Parham’s left leg was amputated, yet Pacolet (Jack) Fernandez wrote per Parham’s request in a letter to the family that a mini-ball entered just above the right knee and passed directly through.  

Parham was buried in grave number 26 of section 2 of the General Hospital, most likely just feet from the tent in which he passed.  Elderly survivors from his company, not having access to all military records, would write in 1901 the following about Parham in A History of Company G, Eleventh Mississippi Regiment, C.S.A.

Click image of Parham M. Buford to view source.

PARHAM MORGAN BUFORD, enlisted August 9, 1861, at Camp Jones, for one year.  Born in Mississippi, and a student at College Hill where his mother resided.  He was nineteen years old and single.  He was present in all the battles in which the Company took part after he joined it until he was mortally wounded at Gettysburg, to wit:

• Two days Seven Pines,
• Gaines’s Farm,
• White Oak Swamp,
• Malvern Hill,
• Freeman’s Ford
• Thoroughfare Gap,
• Two days at Second Manassas,
• Boonsborough,
• Sharpsburg,
• Gettysburg, where he was wounded in the right leg; was captured at field hospital, leg amputated.  He died soon afterwards in July, 1863. [The patriotic ladies of Richmond removed our dead from Gettysburg to Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Va., so we conclude his remains have been reinterred in Hollywood.

The Confederacy had no truer soldier than he who bore the name Parham Morgan Buford.

Click photo of Parham M. Buford’s grave marker to listen to “Wearing of the Gray,” a tribute to the fallen Confederates.

Captured During a Religious Service

I was captured in the afternoon of a beautiful Sabbath day, the fifth of July, 1863, in a hospital tent, in the midst of a religious service, surrounded by the wounded on every hand, to whom I was ministering, and at whose urgent solicitation I had voluntarily remained within the enemy’s line.

Click the image of Thomas Dwight Witherspoon to view source.

These were the words of Confederate Chaplain Thomas Dwight Witherspoon. Thomas was ordained in 1860 and installed as pastor of the Presbyterian Church in Oxford, Mississippi. He was influential in the lives of many university students within the community and enlisted with them when the call to arms came in 1861.  Thomas served in the 11th Mississippi Lamar Rifles with Parham until, as the need for chaplains in the Confederacy increased, he was transferred to the 2nd and later to the 42nd.  Providentially,  both he and Parham were attached to Davis’ brigade at Gettysburg.  It is possible that Parham, as an amputee, might have been in the hospital tent among the wounded on every hand during the religious service described above.

Upon being captured, Thomas and other chaplains remaining behind were allowed to continue ministering to their wounded at Camp Letterman until they and the medical doctors were transferred on August 7th to Union-controlled Fort McHenry, Fort Monroe, Fort Norfolk, and then back to Fort McHenry again. They were released on November 21st during a prisoner exchange.

Prisoner of War Leg is Amputated

July 4, 1863, the very day Jack Fernandez wrote the previously posted letter to Parham’s family, the Army of Northern Virginia began their escape from Gettysburg.  Parham’s fellow 11th Mississippians were strategically placed at the rear where they victoriously defeated the 8th Illinois Cavalry in hot pursuit at Narrow Fairfield Gap.

Parham could not join the retreat; the day before during Pickett’s Charge a Yankee minie ball entered just above the right knee and passed directly through.  As a result of this wound, Parham was left behind at Camp Letterman General Hospital near Gettysburg where he was taken as a prisoner of war and had his leg amputated at the thigh.

Click image to view American Battlefield Trust video about period amputations.