Meeting Between Brothers

Hillsborough (NC) Recorder, August 14, 1861

AFFECTING INCIDENT

Frederick Hubbard of the New Orleans Washington Artillery, and Henry Hubbard, of the 1st Minnesota Infantry, brothers, were both wounded at Manassas, fighting on opposite sides, and after the battle met for the first time in seven years in a stable, where they and nine other wounded men were laid.  The artilleryman being the less wounded, was found ministering to his brother.  And the case excited so much interest that a surgeon at once dressed the Yankee’s wounds and had him removed to his own hospital.

Richmond Daily Dispatch, August 1, 1861

Camp Near Manassas, July 27th, 1861

To the Editors of the Dispatch:

 –I, together with several other gentlemen from Montgomery, a day or two ago, witnessed one of the most singular, at the same time most affecting incidents which will probably occur during this unholy and unnatural war, if it should last for twenty years. We were straggling over the battle-field, examining the ground upon which we had such a bloody conflict and won such a glorious victory, two days before. We came unexpectedly into the Centreville road and seeing a house upon our left with the usual signs betokening a hospital, one of our party being a physician, expressed a wish to get down and examine the wounded. Upon inquiry we learned that a stable just below the house contained thirteen wounded Yankees; we forth with proceeded to the stable, and upon entering found a Washington artilleryman seated by the side of a wounded soldier evidently ministering to him with great care and tenderness. I introduced myself to him and asked if he aided in working the battery which fought with the 1st Virginia Brigade. He told me he did not — he had fought in a battery lower down, and then remarked “that it was very hard to fight as he had fought and turn and find his own brother fighting against him, ” at the same time pointing to the wounded soldier from whose side he had just risen. I asked if it was possible that was his brother. “Yes, sir, he is my brother Henry. The same mother bore us — the same mother nursed us. We meet the first time for seven years. I belong to the Washington Artillery, from New Orleans — he to the 1st Minnesota Infantry. By the merest chance I learned he was here wounded, and sought him out to nurse and attend him. “–Thus they met–one from the far North, the other from the extreme South–on a bloody field in Virginia — in a miserable stable, far away from their mother, home and friends — both wounded — the infantryman by a musket ball in the right shoulder, the artilleryman by the wheel of a caisson over his left hand. Thus they met after an absence of seven years. Their names are Frederick Hubbard, Washington Artillery, and Henry Hubbard, 1st Minnesota Infantry. We met a surgeon of one of the Alabama regiments and related the case to him, and requested, for the sake of the artilleryman, that his brother might be cared for. He immediately examined and dressed his wounds, and sent off in haste for an ambulance to take the wounded “Yankee” to his own regimental hospital.

M. F.

See notes here.

Image of newspaper page here.