“Soldiers Heart” How the Civil War Impacted Soldiers During & After

By Chris, July 9, 2013 Part I During and after the Civil War surgeons began looking closely at a medical condition that affected some soldiers; what we today know as PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). It was sometimes first referred to as “melancholy” or “nostalgia” during the war. Then when surgeon Jacob Mendes Da Costa observed symptoms that he classified as a heart issue, which came be to known as “Da Costa’s syndrome,” an idiom developed known as “soldier’s heart” as the description. In 1871 Da Costa did a study of 300 Civil War veterans that showed there were physical symptoms that he and others associated with combat fatigue. These...

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A Good Caning

From: acw.co.uk The place, the Senate Chamber, Washington D.C., Date May 22nd 1856. One day after Senator Sumner had finished his speech, he addressed himself to the absent Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina, basically saying that Butler was a spokesman for slavery, which he called a crime against nature. And other comments such as, "He has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight, I mean the Harlot - Slavery". There was quite a bit more of this, ranging from Senator Butler to Ancient Egyptians. But back...

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President Lincoln's Jewish Doctor

By Jennifer Schuessler, March 19, 2015 ON Sept. 20, 1862, Abraham Lincoln had a lot on his mind. The Civil War was raging, and just days later he would issue the preliminary draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. Still, the weary president found time to sit down to write a testimonial to his podiatrist. “Dr. Zacharie has, with great dexterity, taken some troublesome corns from my toes,” Lincoln wrote. “He is now treating me, and I believe with success, for what plain people call back-ache. We shall see how it will end.” The story may seem like the beginning of an ill-advised borscht belt meets Corn Belt joke. But in fact it’s one of...

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Joseph K. Barnes, Surgeon General

history.amedd.army.mil JOSEPH K. BARNES (July 21,1817 - April 5,1883), Surgeon General, August 22, 1864 - June 30, 1882, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., the son of Judge Joseph Barnes, a native of New England, who served for many years as Judge of the district court of that city. He received in academic education at Round Hill School at Northampton, Mass., and entered upon a collegiate course at Harvard University. Compelled by ill health to leave college before graduation he began the study of medicine with Surgeon (later Surgeon General) Thomas Harris of the navy, and received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1838. After...

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Charles "Charley" King, the Youngest Casualty of the Civil War

From: pacivilwar150.com Great sacrifices were made at the Battle of Antietam. And one very small one. Charles "Charley" King loved playing music. When war broke out, the West Chester, Pa. 12-year-old begged his father to let him enlist in the army as a drummer boy. He earned the backing of Company F Captain Benjamin Sweeney by practicing his drumming near the military camp where the company was being trained. Sweeney, who was recruiting soldiers to serve in the Forty-Ninth Pennsylvania, was impressed. Sweeney convinced Charley's father that "drummer boys were non-combatants, who generally were safer behind the lines than on the battle line...

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About the Ambulance Corps

From: fisher.k12.il.us The Medical Director of the Army of the Potomac was Jonathan Letterman. Jonathan Letterman made a plan called the ambulance plan, which had two stretchers- and one driver. They brought the wounded to places called dressing stations, then they were transferred to a field hospital. The plan was implemented in August 1862 when McClellan issued General Orders No.147 creating the Ambulance Corps for the Army of the Potomac under the control of the Medical Director. In March 1864, Congress published the Act Public 22 to create an Ambulance Corps for all of the Union Armies. The most unfit soldiers were detailed prior to...

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What Type of Candy Did They Eat in the Civil War?

From: answers.yahoo.com Best Answer:  Chocolate candy. It was made with half a pound chocolate, a pound and a half brown sugar, and three quarters of a cup milk. This was more of a sucking candy as you'd boil it and drop a little in cold water to see how quickly it would harden. If it hardened quickly enough it was done and you could take it off the fire. Soldiers who got this candy in a box from home were apparently quite lucky. A Mrs. Haskell's in 1863 wrote down recipes for molasses candy and maple sugar taffy. Made from a quart of molasses and once it was ready you'd pour it out and allow to cool (baking sheets should be used here)...

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Jelly Beans for Union Soldiers

From: newsfeed.time.com When you think of Easter candy, think jelly beans. Americans pop 16 billion little chewy, sugary concoctions every Easter. Created in the 17th century and then refined thereafter, the jelly bean took rise in the U.S. when Boston candy maker William Schrafft marketed them heavily to Union soldiers during the Civil War. Originally sold by color, jelly beans were the first candy to ever be sold by weight. They gained their Easter popularity in the 1930s behind a marketing push that pitched the beans’ resemblance to an egg. The most popular color remains red to this day...

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The End of the Slave Trade

By Joshua D. Rothman, 3-27-15 On March 21, 1865, black Charlestonians reveled in their freedom in a parade that began before more than 10,000 people on the Citadel green and stretched for nearly two and a half miles. Mounted marshals led a band, the 21st Regiment of the United States Colored Troops, and clergymen from numerous denominations. Behind them walked an assembly of women, more than 1,800 newly enrolled public school children and a variety of black tradesmen, from fishermen and carpenters to barbers and blacksmiths, who carried banners that read, among other things, “We Know No Master But Ourselves,” “Free Homes, Free Schools, One...

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Civil War Bandages: Lint and Charpie (it's not your dryer lint)

By Virginia Mescher In reading numerous accounts of women’s contributions during the Civil War, one usually sees references to lint, scraping lint and the amount of lint sent to hospitals by relief societies. The lint phenomena occurred in both the North and South, where ladies’ aid societies and lint societies were formed to produce lint for the wounded. Lint was a common medical product which was used to dress wounds but to completely understand exactly what was meant by lint or scraping lint, one must be aware of the period definition. There were two types of lint used for dressings. Lint was defined in Webster’s Dictionary, 1861 as, “Flax,...

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History of the U.S. Christian Commission

By Angela Cross, U.S. Christian Commission Soon after the start of the Civil War, YMCA leaders became concerned with the religious and spiritual needs of the soldiers in the nearby camps. Vincent Colyer, a member of the New York City YMCA, had begun spending time visiting nearby encampments where soldiers were stationed temporarily on their way to the battle front. Colyer mingled with the soldiers, offered words of encouragement, and handed out religious tracts. Since few camps had chaplains, the chaplaincy then being in its infancy, Colyer's ministrations were welcomed by both the soldiers and their officers. As a result of these activities,...

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Ambulance Trains

Excerpted from: "Ambulance Trains" by Addeane S. Caelleigh Just as the horse-drawn ambulance had been originally developed by military medicine, so were ambulance trains. Evacuating, distributing, and treating the wounded during modern war requires mass transportation, which by the 1850s meant the railroad and steamship. In the United States, both were used in the Civil War (1861-65), and rail evacuation was important in the treatment of sick and wounded soldiers for almost the next hundred years. In the Civil War, the wounded were at first carried away from battles in empty freight and passenger cars, which were not well suited to the needs...

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The Army Medical Department Civilian Corps: A Legacy of Distinguished Service

By Major Kenneth M. Koyle, AMEDD Center of History and Heritage, 3-9-11 Civilians have played a vital role in Army medicine from the very beginning. In fact, virtually all medical functions were provided by civilians in the first few decades of the Army’s existence. The history of civilian support to the Army Medical Department (AMEDD) is an integral and inseparable component of our overall medical history. On 27 July 1775 the Continental Congress established a medical department to provide care for the nascent Continental Army. Although it outlined a rudimentary system of care for the military, the legislation creating the medical department...

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The Poet Laureate of the South: Margaret Junkin Preston

From: acws.co.uk Margaret Junkin Preston (19 May 1820 - 28 March 1897), poet and writer, was born in Milton, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Rev. George Junkin and Julia Rush Miller. A Presbyterian minister, her father was called to Easton, Pennsylvania, in 1832 to assume the presidency of the newly established Lafayette College. As a child, Margaret was tutored by members of the Lafayette faculty as well as her parents. Dr. Junkin became president of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in 1841; three years later, he returned to Lafayette. In 1848, having accepted the presidency of Washington College (later Washington and Lee University), he moved...

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Thoracic Surgery in the Civil War

Excerpted from: U.S. Army Medical Department, Office of Medical History Of a total of 253,142 wounds recorded in the Civil War, 20,607 (8.1 percent) involved the chest, and 8,715 of these (42.3 percent) were penetrating wounds (5). The overall case fatality rate for chest wounds was 27.8 percent and for penetrating chest wounds 62.6 percent. A number of cases were reported in which complete recovery followed gunshot wounds of both lungs. A number of recoveries were also reported after penetrating gunshot fractures of the sternum, apparently because the causative missiles were of low velocity. In 1863, Assistant Surgeon Benjamin Howard recommended...

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