Bullet Wound

From: livescience.com Private Eben Smith, Co. A, 11th Maine Volunteers was wounded at Deep Bottom, Va., by a conoidal ball on Aug. 16, 1864. Primary amputation was done by acting assistant surgeon J.C. Morton on Sept. 14, 1864; the amputation at the hip was performed by acting assistant surgeon John H. Packard on Jan. 19, 1865. Conoidal bullets were cylindrical soft lead bullets that became widely used in the Civil War. They were large-caliber, so they did a lot of damage and were responsible for many amputations. Illustration by Baumgras. ...

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Lincoln’s Funeral in Immigrant New York

By Patrick Young, Esq. Lincoln’s death at the hands of an assassin was met with rejoicing in some parts of the country. In the newly occupied former Confederate states, many celebrated the killing as an act that could undo defeat. In St. Augustine, Florida’s oldest city, whites taunted freed blacks with the news and the promise that they would be re-enslaved. In New Orleans, a former slave owner told blacks that they would now be hung. United States Colored Troops faced the jeers of former Confederates who shouted that “Your father is dead.” Unionists sought to quiet dissent through violence. In St. Louis, soldiers shot people celebrating...

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America’s Pastime, Behind Bars

By George Kirsch, 4-2-13 Civil War prisons were terrible places: captured solders suffered and died by the thousands from malnutrition, disease and exposure to the elements. But in several Northern and Southern prisons, a few fortunate inmates were able to enjoy, for a moment, a lighter side of life: baseball. The Civil War was the cauldron of America’s pastime, the period in which several prototype forms of the game – the New York game, townball – were melded into what we more or less know as the sport today. Such melding took place in camps, where officers on both sides permitted and even encouraged baseball playing. But it also took place...

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Kindness Amid the Slaughter

By Pat Leonard, 5-6-13 On the afternoon of May 2, 1863, Cpl. Rice Bull looked out over the position that his newly formed regiment, the 123rd New York Infantry, was assigned to defend, just south of the Chancellorsville crossroads. He and his fellow upstaters had not yet “seen the elephant” – the soldiers’ expression for experiencing combat – and he was reassured to see that they were supported by more veteran units, including the Second Massachusetts and the 27th Indiana. He noted the striking contrast between those units’ faded, bullet-ridden battle flags and the crisp, spotless condition of his regiment’s colors. Bull’s reassurance, however,...

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The Drummer Boy of Chickamauga

From: civilwar.org John Clem: August 13, 1851-May 13, 1937 When President Abraham Lincoln in May 1861 issued the call for volunteers to serve in the Union army for a three year term, one of those who tried to answer was Ohio resident John Clem. Not yet 10 years old, Clem’s service was refused by the newly formed 3rd Ohio. Undeterred, Clem later tried to join the 22nd Michigan, where his persistence won over the unit’s officers. They agreed to let him follow the regiment, adopting him as a mascot and unofficial drummer boy. The officers also chipped in to pay his monthly salary of $13 before he finally was allowed to officially enlist in 1863. Clem...

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Dr. Gurdon Buck: Plastic Surgery Pioneer

Excerpted from: wikipedia.com Born: 4 May 1807, New York City, New York State Died : March 6, 1877, New York City, New York State Residence: United States of America Nationality :United States of America Fields Surgeon Institutions: New York Hospital Alma mater: Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons Known for: Plastic Surgery pioneer and incorporation of pre and post-operative photography Gurdon Buck was a pioneer military plastic surgeon during the Civil War. He's known for being the first doctor to incorporate pre and post-operative photographs into his publications. Buck's fascia and Buck's extension are both named...

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Pinned Down at Port Hudson

 By Ronald S. Coddington, 6-14-13 Confederate artillery and infantry fire roared from the formidable defenses of Port Hudson, La., on June 14, 1863. Shot and shell raked the rough-and-tumble terrain where Union forces were pinned down after a failed assault, caught between the lines and unable to advance or retreat. A glimpse through thick drifts of gun smoke revealed a knoll littered with broken bodies of men in blue. Dead, dying and wounded soldiers blanketed the exposed ground in the scorching heat of the day. Those who had not been struck hugged the earth as the hail of fire continued. One of the injured federals trapped on the...

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Recounting the Dead

By J. David Hacker, 9-20-11 Even as Civil War history has gone through several cycles of revision, one thing has remained fixed: the number of dead. Since about 1900, historians and the general public have assumed that 618,222 men died on both sides. That number is probably a significant undercount, however. New estimates, based on Census data, indicate that the death toll was approximately 750,000, and may have been as high as 850,000. The notion that we’ve drastically undercounted the Civil War dead is not a new idea: in fact, Francis Amasa Walker, superintendent of the 1870 Census, estimated that the number of male deaths was “not less...

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Dr. Rebecca Davis Lee Crumpler: First African-American Woman to Become a Physician in the United States

By Jacqueline Taylor Rebecca Davis Lee Crumpler was an American physician. Rebecca Lee was the 1st African-American woman to become a physician in the United States. She married Dr. Arthur Crumpler after the Civil War. Her publication of A Book of Medical Discourses in 1883 was one of the 1st written by an African American about medicine.         In 1831, Rebecca Davis Lee was born in Delaware  to Matilda Webber and Absolum Davis. During the antebellum years, medical care for poor blacks was almost non-existent. She moved to Charlestown, Massachusetts by 1852 and was employed as a nurse until she was accepted into...

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Huge Pewter Irrigator Syringe

From: joshuasattic.com This is an extremely large irrigatory made out of pewter and marked on the rim "HD/US" meaning "Hospital Department/ United States." Internal leather plungers seal off the inner cavity so that liquids and gels could be forced out tip by ramming down on the wooden plunger. This was used for larger body cavities and could even have been employed in the Veterinary Care of the Cavalry's horses (hopefully not on two species in the same day!)... Without an effective use of electricity yet during the American Civil War, equipment was literally hand-driven with elbow-grease. Thus, both suction effects and washing procedures...

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A Memorial for a Teenage Soldier: Charles Edwin "Charlie" King

From: findagrave.com Birth: Apr., 1849 West Chester Chester County Pennsylvania, USA Death: Sep. 20, 1862 Antietam Washington County Maryland, USA Civil War Folk Figure. At age 13, he served as a drummer boy in Company F of the 49th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, which was part of the Union Army of the Potomac's VI Corps. During the September 17, 1862, Battle of Antietam, Maryland, the 49th Pennsylvania was stationed in the East Woods near the Miller Cornfield. During an artillery salvo of Confederate cannons, a shell exploded nearby, wounding several soldiers including Charlie King. Several of his company members carried him to a field...

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Then & Now: Caring for War's Dead and Wounded

From: pbs.org A Civil War burial ground was a profoundly religious place. The circumstances of a person's death was thought to indicate much about the nature of one's afterlife; a "good death" meant passing at home surrounded by the family and friends one hoped to reunite with in heaven. The American Civil War upended these Christian notions of the proper way to die. On the battlefield, most soldiers died alone, anonymous, and without comfort, their families unaware of their fate. Today, our government provides services for surviving veterans and their families, but it took the mass casualties of the Civil War to bring about this standard....

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Humanity and Hope in a Southern Prison

By Peter Cozzens, 4-24-14 For more than the obvious reasons, Civil War soldiers in both armies despised military prisons. Not only were the inmates held against their will, but the hunger, filth, vermin, rampant disease, overcrowding, brutal treatment and soul-crushing ennui made prison camps slaughterhouses of slow death. Andersonville, the infamous Georgia prison, was the ultimate abattoir; during the summer of 1864 nearly one in three Union inmates died. In other Confederate prisons, the average mortality rate was 15.5 percent; in Union prisons, 12 percent. There was one remarkable exception: the virtually unknown Cahaba Federal Prison,...

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Pewter Medical Irrigator Tip

From: joshuasattic.com This is a dug pewter syringe-irrigator tip. It has threads where it was screwed into a metal syringe. Water could be used to flush wounds, body cavities, or the andomen during surgery. The end of this has holes for creating a pressurized jet of water. This was dug near Fairfax Station, VA. The site is forever covered by a McDonalds now! What other relics from our past are locked under new homes, parking lots, roads, schools and strip malls? A bullet from same site shows the size of this irrigator tip. It is 4 1/8 inches lon...

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Left for Dead in Virginia

By Ronald S. Coddington, 6-28-12 George T. Perkins and his Union comrades breathed a collective sigh of relief on the afternoon of June 27, 1862. Positioned behind breastworks along a stretch of pinewoods on the battlefield of Gaines’s Mill, they listened as the pounding of artillery and rattling of musketry on their left rose and faded. Then another din on their right, followed by three Yankee huzzahs. A round of smiles, handshakes and backslapping broke out among this hearty band of brothers who belonged to the 22nd Massachusetts Infantry. Held in reserve, the regiment did not expect to fight this day. It appeared that the services of Perkins,...

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