Eugene Demers
Co. B, 125th New York
Left leg amputated above knee
Troy, New York

[Corp. Eugene L. Demers – Co. D, 125th New York. Age 19.  Salesman, Troy NY. 5’ 10” tall, grey eyes, light hair, fair complexion. WIA 2 July, Severely in left leg “amp. above knee.” Discharged for wounds at Phila. Hosp. 15 May 1864. Brevetted 2d Lt. 13 March 1865. Died 26 April 1912, Troy, NY.]

In his book, Imperfect Union: A Father’s Search for his Son in the Aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg, author Chuck Raasch told of Eugene’s father’s efforts to see his wounded son at the Second Corps Hospital:

“George W. Demers, editor of the Troy, New York, Daily Times, found out that his brother, Pvt. Eugene L. Demers, and been wounded and had had a leg amputated. The brother’s aging father had rushed to the battlefield to nurse the boy back to health and stayed with him for several days. But what Demers called a ‘red-tape’ Union hospital eventually barred the old man from visiting his son, and he unloaded his anger and frustration in a letter to Lincoln.

“All he asks is permission a few hours a day to sit beside his bed and cheer him,” Demers wrote. “He will interfere with no one and cost nothing. My brother languishes without him and may die.” [Page 287]

On George Demers’ brother’s letter to Lincoln, writing on behalf of his father [David H. Demers] we can note that the letter was sent on August 14th, 1863, after Demers had been transferred to the General Hospital at Camp Letterman.  Speaking to the Chief Magistrate as one who had been “an editor of the leading Republican Administration organ of Northern and Eastern New York [The Troy Daily Times], “ Demers said ‘Please do not lay this letter down here.  I never asked for an office, and do not want one now.’  Rather, Demers said, ‘I have a brother, the pet of aged parents, who left a comfortable home, enlisted as a private, was wounded at Gettysburg and suffered amputation at the thigh.’  His father, Demers complained, ‘went down to nurse him and did so in the field, but when he was moved to a general hospital, a red-tape Surgeon banished him.  All he asks is permission, a few hours a day, to sit beside his bedside and cheer him. … My brother languishes without him, and may die.  Three lines from you will set the matter right- accepting him and commissioning him as a nurse without pay.’ There  is no record of the 16th President’s response, but George survived. “) The letter itself can be found in the Abraham Lincoln Papers in the Library of Congress Manuscript Division (Washington, D.C:  American Memory Project 2000-2002) https://memory.loc.gov/ammem/alhtml/malhome.html

Wikipedia: Eugene L. Demers