George W. Marquis was wounded at the Battle of Brawner Farm by having a minie ball pass thru his leg. The following is an excerpt from a letter he wrote on September 20th, 1862 while in the hospital.

 

"I was wounded on the 28th day of August. After I was shot I crawled in an old log hut and laid there 3 days. The second day or third day the enemy came through and I thought my time was near at hand … the rebels came with an ambulance and took me away to a hospital in the woods. I laid there 4 days, men dying around me and crying for something to eat and wanting to go home but I kept all these things off my mind and stuck it out for six days. A few hard crackers is all I had. We laid out 10 days after the battle when a flag of truce came after us. I suffered great pain riding 50 miles in a wagon, It was a horrible sight to see the battlefield, such an event I never want to experience again."

 

George said later that you could pass a rag through the hole in his leg.

 

He was taken to the hospital for incurables in Washington D.C. His doctors ordered his leg amputated but he wrote at once to his sister Elizabeth ( his family lived in Virginia and were Confederates. His mother said "as long as you wear Union blue, you are not welcome in our house! ) Elizabeth came to Washington, saw her brother, and got an audience with President Lincoln who said to her, "your brother was wounded fighting for his country and his country should take care of him. What can you do for him  that we are not doing here? She replied "we can give him the love and care of a family." Lincoln stood for a time and just looking at her and said, "I'll have your brother released and you can take him home."

 

His leg was not amputated and in a year he was walking with only a slight limp. ( his leg was "drawn up" so badly it took a year to straighten it. )

 

Before the war George worked for Colonel Meredith taking care of his horses.