Military and Historical Image Bank (www.historicalimagebank.com)Captain Fitch’s battlefield parole document, issued by Confederate States Forces at Gettysburg, Pa., July 1863.
The Battle of Gettysburg ended early for Captain Joseph B. Fitch, who was wounded in the thigh and taken prisoner on July 2, 1863, while he and his comrades in the 20th Maine Infantry fought off repeated Confederate attacks on Little Round Top. Fitch faced a precarious future—an extended stay in a Confederate prison camp while nursing a serious injury—until his fate took a turn for the better the following day with Robert E. Lee’s decision to withdraw his army after the repulse of Pickett’s Charge.
The captain was granted a battlefield parole (pictured here), which allowed him to return to the safety of Union lines but not to “do any military duty whatever” until formally exchanged. Fitch’s wound clearly played a role in the decision, as evidenced by the scribbled note from the authorizing Confederate officer. “This Parole is extended to the wounded in consideration of humanity to save a painful and tedious march to the rear,” he wrote.
Fitch would recover and rejoin the 20th Maine, serving until war’s end. He returned home with a scar on his leg, the satisfaction of preserving the Union, and one heck of a good Gettysburg souvenir.
