Medicine at Sea

Excerpted from: bhatmanjim.weebly.com Surgeons aboard naval vessels during the Civil War were presented with unique circumstances and problems that their land based counterparts did not have to deal with.  The difficulty of performing surgery or any other medical task could be greatly amplified by the movements of the ship. Additionally, army surgeons could usually find areas behind the front lines to stage their treatment areas, whereas navy surgeons had to perform their craft amidst the battle of the ship.  Navy surgeons working during a battle were in constant and immediate danger.  The creation of Union Hospital Ships allowed...

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Prostitution During the Civil War

Excerpted from: wikipedia.org Prostitution experienced its largest growth during 1861-1865. Some historians have speculated that this growth can be attributed to a depression, and the need for women to support themselves and their families while their husbands were away at war. Other historians considered the growth of prostitution to be related to the women wanting to spread venereal disease to the opposing troops. The term ‘public women’ was coined for the women that became prostitutes. There was moral outrage at this rising employment, and law officials classified the people they arrested as such. The word “hooker” predates the Civil...

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Memorial Day History

From: va.gov Three years after the Civil War ended, on May 5, 1868, the head of an organization of Union veterans — the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) — established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. Maj. Gen. John A. Logan declared that Decoration Day should be observed on May 30. It is believed that date was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country. The first large observance was held that year at Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. The ceremonies centered around the mourning-draped veranda of the Arlington mansion,...

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Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth: The First Military Casualty of the American Civil War

From: civilwarundertaker.net Colonel Ellsworth was the first military casualty of the American Civil War. On May 24, 1861, along with his New York City Volunteer Regiment (made up mostly of New York City Firemen) Colonel Ellsworth went to remove a large Confederate flag from the roof of the Marshall House Hotel in Alexandria, Virginia. It was there that he was shot in the chest with a shotgun blast and killed. Upon the return of his body to the Washington Navy Yard, Dr. Thomas Holmes visited President Lincoln and offered to embalm the body free of charge. He was subsequently given permission to do so. It is reported that Mrs. Lincoln was...

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Dr. William J. Bunnell's Embalming Shed Near the Battlefield at Fredericksburg

From: civilwarundertaker.net The accompanying photo shows one of Dr. Bunnell's  (1823-1891) embalming sheds near Fredericksburg, Virginia, December 1862.  The embalmer would use any building or shed available.  In the absence of a permanent structure he would pitch a tent.  There were days when it was not uncommon for there to be more than 100 bodies waiting to be embalmed. As the "embalming surgeon" or "undertaker" contracted to prepare the body of the dead soldier, he would set up an embalming tent near the battlefield or hospital.  There would be times when there might be tens upon tens of bodies waiting to be...

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"Soldier's Heart" and "Shell Shock": Past Names for PTSD

From: pbs.org PTSD is a relatively new diagnosis, but Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder has been observed throughout decades of warfare. Here, tracing the history and our growing understanding of how the disorder affects soldiers is Matthew Friedman, executive director of the VA's National Center for PTSD. These excerpts are from extended FRONTLINE interviews. Dr. Matthew Friedman Exec. Dir., VA National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder …Can you talk about the term "Soldier's Heart" and how it connects to our understanding today about what is PTSD? The term "Soldier's Heart" was first coined in the post-Civil War era when people were...

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The Youngest Soldier Wounded

By Kayla Although army drummers were usually adult males, young boys were trained to take their place—some even starting as young as eight years old. These boys were responsible for memorizing up to 40 beats to communicate to the troops. Some of the boys were carried on the shoulders of fellow soldiers, protected and endeared by their older companions. These young drummers were not intentionally put near dangerous areas of battles, but it wasn’t rare for them to receive injury as they marched with the troops to fight. William Black is believed to be the youngest soldier wounded in the Civil War. When he was twelve years old, his left arm...

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The Youngest Wounded: Drummer Boys

Excerpted from: wikipedia.org Drummer boys were children recruited as drummers for use on the battlefield. Until well into the 19th century, western armies recruited young boys to act as drummers. The drums were an important part of the battlefield communications system, with various drum rolls used to signal different commands from officers to troops. Although there were usually official age limits, these were often ignored; the youngest boys were sometimes treated as mascots by the adult soldiers. The life of a drummer boy appeared rather glamorous and as a result, boys would sometimes run away from home to enlist. Other boys may have been...

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Richmond Man Watched Lincoln Conspirators Hang

By Steve Martin, April 12, 2015 A man who lived out his life in Richmond witnessed the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln and the burial of John Wilkes Booth. He also guarded the conspirators before their executions. One of them was the first woman ever to be executed by the United States government. She was Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt, a co-conspirator in the assassination of Lincoln. Surratt was a Southern sympathizer whose family relied on slave labor. She and the other subversives were pro-slavery white supremacists. Richmond’s Harry Hoover guarded her. He later became a Palladium printer, who would retire in Richmond after...

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Podiatry

By Ron Kennedy, M.D. Until the turn of the 20th century, podiatrists were separate from organized medicine. They were independently licensed physicians who treated feet, ankle and related leg structures. Lewis Durlacher was the first to recognize the need for a protected profession. There are records of the King of France employing a personal podiatrist, as did Napoleon. President Abraham Lincoln suffered greatly with his feet and chose a podiatrist (then called chiropodists) who not only cared for the president’s feet, but also was sent by President Lincoln on confidential missions to confer with leaders of the Confederacy during the U.S....

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How Boston Embraced the Booth Brothers

By Christopher Klein, 4-12-15 ON APRIL 15, 1865, a shroud of grief descended upon Boston as the city awoke to learn of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Flags that had been fluttering proudly since Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox just days before now drooped sorrowfully at half-staff. Miles of black crepe draped from buildings that only hours earlier sported an outburst of patriotic bunting. Merchants placed lithographs of the martyred president in their storefront windows and shuttered their doors — with the exception of those doing a brisk business selling black gloves, black ribbons, and other merchandise for mourning. The bells...

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Embalming Exhibit Preserves Gory Part of Civil War History

By David Dishneau, August 2003 The table is a peeling wooden door laid flat across two upright barrels. The deceased is a bearded young man, his lips and eyelids blue, bare feet extending beyond a white sheet. And hand-pumping chemicals into the body is Dr. Richard Burr, a 19th century Army surgeon who found opportunity in the flourishing practice of embalming fallen Civil War soldiers. The exhibit is the latest addition to the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, Md., a permanent installation of photographs, artifacts and life-size mannequins documenting America's embrace of full-body preservation. "It's just gruesome enough...

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Medicaments

From: acws.co.uk Medical supplies were transported to the battle areas as part of the general field train, and carried to the front lines in ambulances, or on pack mules, or on the shoulders of the regimental hospital stewards. The major effective drugs in use were quinine and morphine. Whiskey was frequently administered to the wounded to induce "reaction", and as the solvent for quinine sometimes administered daily as a suppressant of malaria. Chloroform, sometimes mixed with small amounts of ether, served as an anaesthetic. Among other drugs used were opium, pepsin, various emetics and cathartics, iodine, and calomel. Dysentery, one of...

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Surgery in the Field

From: acws.co.uk The wounded soldier who received medical attention in the field (and base hospital) had still to run the considerable risk of surgery. After ambulance facilities were available, field hospitals were sometimes overwhelmed by major battle casualties. The limited number of surgeons worked around the clock and haste and neglect were unavoidable under such circumstances. Anaesthetics, generally chloroform, were available, but there was no notion of aseptic procedure. As W W Keen recalled some years later: "We operated in old blood-stained and often pus-stained coats with undisinfected hands we used undisinfected instruments and...

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Civil War Surgery

By Pvt. Hugh R Martyr, 20th Maine The War broke out during a transition period in medical knowledge. Anaesthesia had been used since the 1840's and thus allowed operations to be performed that hitherto would have been impossible. However there was no knowledge or understanding about the spread of infection until the 1870's. Thus, able to carry out major surgery, medical staff unwittingly caused serious problems with infection. By far, the most common of wounds to be dealt with, were caused by gunshot. The Minié Ball made a hideous wound, often changing shape as it entered the body and dragging in dirty clothing; upon hitting bone it caused...

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Private Bruce Shipman and the Ambulance Corps of the 76th New York

By Robert Moore, Jr. I take great pride in writing this story of my great-great grandfather, Bruce Shipman, for your journal, and I know that he would be very pleased to be included. He considered his service in the Civil War with the 76th New York as the greatest single event of his life. I literally would not exist if not for certain twists of fate involving the Civil War, foremost among them Shipman's capture at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 — more about that later. But I think the most compelling aspect of the story is that Bruce was such an ordinary guy. He was of average height and build, came from obscurity, did his duty during the...

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Civil War Hospital Wooden Lower Leg Splint

From: joshuasattic.com This is a factory molded piece of walnut used by physicians during the Civil War period to splint broken or injured lower legs (tibia-fibula). Soldiers would wear these for weeks or months while healing in larger hospitals in Washington and Philadelphia. Made by various manufacturers, they have a wonderfully smooth & exact construction that suits the natural curve of anatomy to the area where they are intended. These came in different sizes, as did soldiers, so there are 3, 4, 5, etc, getting progressively longer and wider. This is a number 6, as we find marked on its backside along with the manufacturer's marking:...

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Civil War Amputation Knife Set

From: joshuasattic.com Three bright, shiny, razor-sharp blades from Charriere of Paris in a custom-fit wooden case. Such blades were imported from both France and England during the Civil War. They were used to quickly slice through muscle, tendon, fascia and flesh to get to the bone during limb amputations. A very neat and well preserved set. These are the types of instruments that Jack-the-Ripper used in England later in the century.....

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The Autopsy of President Abraham Lincoln

From: nlm.nih.gov On April 14, 1865, the assassin John Wilkes Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln during a performance at Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC. After the President passed away on the following morning, his body was placed in a temporary coffin covered with an American flag, and returned by hearse to the White House, accompanied by a cavalry escort. At the White House, an autopsy was performed by Army Surgeons Edward Curtis and Joseph Janvier Woodward. Also in attendance were Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes and a few military officers, medical men and friends. During the autopsy Mary Todd Lincoln sent a messenger to request a...

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Richmond Man Recalls Lincoln's Assassination

By Steve Martin, 4-6-15 Richmond man Harry Hoover was marching down the aisle of Ford's Theatre on April 14, 1865, during a performance of "Our American Cousin" when he heard a shot. Hoover looked up to see one of the best-known actors of the day, John Wilkes Booth, jump from the president's booth to the stage and make his escape in the confusion. Hoover later would admit, "I was familiar with Booth… I saw him lounging in Ford's Theatre when we were examining the passes, not 30 minutes before he committed his crime." The following is a composite of what happened, taken from Hoover's 1921 memoirs that are housed at the Wayne County Historical...

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Civil War Death Toll Keeps Rising

From: acws.co.uk It has long been recognised by many historians and scholars alike that the death toll of the American Civil War was in the region of 618,222. These figures were gained through casualty figures and official statistics gleaned at the time. However, brand new research recently compiled following the release into the public domain of Census data material of the time has concluded that these statistics may well be far below the actual casualty rates that occurred during the Civil War. This may reflect opinions of other Civil War historians of both the 19th and 20th century who have long argued that the figures are far too low....

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The Founder of Mother's Day Later Fought to Have It Abolished

By Jonathan Mulinix Years after she founded Mother’s Day, Anna Jarvis was dining at the Tea Room at Wanamaker’s department store in Philadelphia. She saw they were offering a “Mother’s Day Salad.” She ordered the salad and when it was served, she stood up, dumped it on the floor, left the money to pay for it, and walked out in a huff. Jarvis had lost control of the holiday she helped create, and she was crushed by her belief that commercialism was destroying Mother’s Day. During the Civil War, Anna's mother, Ann Jarvis, cared for the wounded on both sides of the conflict. She also tried to orchestrate peace between Union and Confederate moms...

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