The Brave Samaritan

 

A Review of The Angel of Marye’s Heights, by Les Carroll, Columbia, SC: Palmetto Bookworks, 1994.

The famed G.K. Chesterton once wrote: “The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.”  No quote better sums up the actions of one brave Confederate soldier on the field at Fredericksburg who, when moved by the pitiful cries of wounded and dying Union soldiers, risked his life to bring some comfort to an enemy that was also his neighbor as an American.

The Angel of Marye’s Heights by Les Carroll describes the extraordinary scene of Sgt. Richard Rowland Kirkland (Company G, 2^nd South Carolina Volunteers) bounding over the wall from where the Confederate forces held the high ground at Fredericksburg on to the battlefield where Union soldiers lay dead and dying.  Onlookers in blue and gray would watch in amazement as this one young Confederate soldier gave a few moments of comfort to the men he had been firing at not that long before. The battle would resume when he went back over the wall and stop when he returned to his mission of mercy with more water for those he was ministering to.  The canteens he carried were those of his fellow Confederate soldiers who were moved to help their blue clad enemy. He carried no gun because of the number of canteens and carried no white flag because of concerns the Union troops would misunderstand his appearance on the battlefield as a desire by the Confederates to talk. 

Once his mission was over, he resumed his post ready for the battle to resume.

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