Letter from Dr. H.H. Beecher - Civil War Surgeon - October 1862

Extract from a Letter  From Surgeon Beecher

Death of Dr. C.C. Willard

Chenango American, October 9, 1862

Dr. H.H. Beecher, Assistant Surgeon of the 114th Regiment, writes an interesting letter to the Chenango Union in alluding to his passage through Greene [Chenango Co., NY] upon his way to join his Regiment, he used the following remarks in regard to the death of Dr. C.C. Willard:

"I cannot refrain from alluding to a scene or event I witnessed in this place, the like of which I hope I may never see again.  While Dr. Augustus Willard and myself were examining a recruit at the Chenango House, a messenger came rushing up the stairs with the intelligence that his son, Dr. C.C. Willard, was worse, and they were afraid he was dying. We hurried to his dwelling--sad to relate, only in time to see him die.  he was cold and pulseless--a struggle or two, and all was over.

"The Doctor had been complaining for a number of weeks, but up to and on the day of his death, he attended to his business, having rode a distance of several miles.  He left his office for his residence as late as six o'clock and some time after this requested his father--which must have been about the last words he spoke--to visit his patients for the night, as he did not feel able to do so himself.  from the suddenness and manner of his decease, I suspect there was some lurking organic disease.

"Dr. Willard was one of the rising members of the profession, and possessed domestic and social qualities which greatly endeared him to his family and a large circle of friends.  How suddenly, in the fullness of manhood and in the pride of his strength, he has been stricken down!

"It is not necessary to go to the field of battle, and face the cannon's mouth, or be exposed to shot and shell, to learn of the frailty of man, or witness the sudden and eternal separation, by death of the loved and cherished ones of earth.  No position or situation in life, at home or abroad, can afford an immunity or shield us from the attack of this destroyer.  How strong soever and confident we may be today, om the morrow of us it may be said that we too are gone.

"But I have not the heart to write the moral of this sad event--indeed, it teaches its own lesson--nor is this the time and place to eulogize the dead.  The records of the Society of which he was an honored member and an efficient officer, and the grateful remembrance of the community in which he lived, and which loved him so well, will, I desist not, do ample justice to his memory and his worth."