150 years ago today Yankee wounded soldiers and medical personnel, , including the renowned Miss Dr. Walker, left Richmond for a swap on the James.
From the Richmond Daily Dispatch August 13 1864:
Departures by flag-of-truce.
–Four hundred and twenty-five wounded Yankee soldiers, nurses, &c., left this city yesterday morning in the shipsteamer Schultz for Varina [aka Aiken’s Landing], whence they will take the flag-of- truce shipboat North in exchange for an equal number of Confederates now confined in Yankee prisons. Among the number were sent from Castle Thunder the notorious Miss Doctor Mary E. Walker, Surgeons of the Fifty-second Ohio regiment, Dr. Culbertson and Hambleton, from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and Captain Samuel Stears, who was formerly a Yankee Custom-House officer. When Miss Dr. Walker emerged from the confines of the Castle she gave vent to an audible huzzah, and raising her hat from her head made an obeisance to the officers of the prison, which plainly indicated that she had no regrets in leaving there, and would remember them in her communications which would be made after her arrival home.
