Medical Information on General Officers: Brevet Major General Joshua L. Chamberlain

From eHistory.com

A terrible wound taken at the battle of Petersburg was declared by surgeons to be mortal, but it would be fifty years before General Chamberlain succumbed to the wound.

Born Sept. 8, 1828, Chamberlain saw action with the Fifth Corps Army of the Potomac from Antietam to Appomattox. He was scratched on the face at Fredericksburg in Dec. 1862. In June 1863, he suffered sunstroke. At Gettysburg on July 2, he was wounded twice in the foot and hip. Both wounds were minor.

From August on, he suffered from malaria. On June 18, 1864, he was shot, the bullet passing through his hips and body. The bullet severed arteries, nicked the bladder, and broke the pelvic bones. Expected to die, Chamberlain survived.

Returning to the Army, he was wounded at Quaker Road on March 29, 1865. The bullet passed through the neck of his horse, hit his arm, and struck him in the chest where it was deflected.

Chamberlain suffered for the rest of his life with the wounds he took at Petersburg though he had a distingushed post war career. Eventually, the infection caused his death on Feb. 24, 1914.

Posted in: Civil War Wounds