Colonel Henry A. Barnum
Colonel Henry A. Barnum was a Medal of Honor recipient from New York who suffered one of the more gruesome and fascinating wounds of the American Civil War.
Barnum was born in Jamesville, New York on September 24, 1833, and was destined to be a lawyer. He passed the bar exam just prior to the start of the war, and entered into service as the Captain of Company I, 12th New York Volunteer Infantry, on May 13, 1861.
Promoted to Major five months later, he served with distinction until being wounded at the Battle of Malvern Hill on July 1, 1862.
It is through this wound that Barnum is not only known to Civil War historians, but also historians of medical science as well.
Wounded through the lower left abdomen, a wound normally thought fatal, he was abandoned on the field of battle. His family received the report of his death, and his funeral services were held in Syracuse.
Barnum, however, had not died, but was captured by the Confederates and placed in Libby Prison in Richmond.
He was returned to the Union Army as part of a prisoner exchange, and was commissioned as the Colonel of the 149th New York Infantry Regiment in October of 1862, and was mustered in with his unit in Syracuse.
Barnum's wound
Barnum continued to suffer from his wound, and was not able to actually join his regiment until it had left Fairfax Station, Virginia, in mid-January, 1863. His wound still proved debilitation, and he was given a leave of absence until April. During this time, he sought treatment for his wound from his personal physician, a Dr. March.
At Malvern Hill, Barnum had been wounded when a musket ball entered his lower left abdomen, passed through his left ilium, and exited out of his back. An infection inevitably set in, and Dr. March proposed the treatment of taking an oakum cord and passing it through the wound, keeping the wound open so that the infection would drain itself. As the years passed by, Barnum kept the cord in place himself, gradually reducing it down to a fine thread.
Barnum's pelvis
According to Dr. John K. Lattimer of the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, "Major General Barnum was obviously a well-fed general, with a lucky layer of extra fat under his skin .... The bullet that struck him in the left front of his abdomen obviously ran around his body outside the tough muscle layers ... exiting in the rear. The skin grew down into each end of the bullet tract, the way it does when a woman's ears are pierced. By running a ramrod through the wound it was kept open."
Following this treatment, Barnum rejoined his regiment during the Gettysburg Campaign briefly, but illness forced him into part-time duty and he returned to Washington, D.C. for more treatment in August of 1863. A month later, his wife Lievina passed away.
Finally recovering from his Malvern Hill wound (but with the wound still open, as it would be for the rest of his life), Barnum rejoined his regiment in Tennessee in November of 1863, and was wounded in the arm leading a charge of his regiment at the Battle of Lookout Mountain on November 24, 1863. It was during this battle that the regiment captured eleven battle flags, and Barnum was to earn the Medal of Honor.
A month later, Barnum was detailed by Major General George H. Thomas to convey flags captured by the 149th to the War Department in Washington. Again, Barnum was to receive further surgical treatment on his wound, and was placed on recruiting service until late June of 1864, at which point he rejoined his regiment in time for the Battle of Peachtree Creek in July, where he was wounded by a shell fragment.
In September of 1864, Colonel David Ireland, Barnum's brigade commander, died from dysentery, and Barnum assumed command of the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Division of the XX Corps. Barnum led this brigade, as first in Sherman's command, into Savannah after its capture.
Barnum was brevetted to Brigadier General, and thereafter to Major General, for "gallantry and fearlessness during the entire war." He resigned from the volunteer army in January, 1866, after refusing a commission of Colonel in the regular army.
Barnum after the war
Barnum spent the post-war years active in public life. He served as inspector of New York's prisons, and as a deputy tax commissioner. In 1885 he was elected to the state assembly, and then served as the Harbor Master of the port of New York. He was the Director of the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association for New York, and served as the Department Command of the Grand Army of the Republic for the State of New York. In 1890, Congress awarded him a pension of one hundred dollars a month, the largest pension ever allowed an officer of his rank.
Barnum died in New York City in 1892 of pneumonia. His wound from Malvern Hill was still open. He was buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Syracuse, New York.
His Medal of Honor citation reads:
Rank and organization: Colonel, 149th New York Infantry. Place and date: At Chattanooga, Tenn., November 23, 1863. Entered service at: Syracuse, N.Y. Born: September 24, 1833, Jamesville, Onondaga County, N.Y. Date of issue: July 1889.
Citation:
Although suffering severely from wounds, he led his regiment, inciting the men to greater action by word and example until again severely wounded.