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.
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.