Empty Sleeves: Amputation in the Civil War South

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Brian Craig Miller (Author)
University of Georgia Press (March 15, 2015)

The Civil War acted like a battering ram on human beings, shattering both flesh and psyche of thousands of soldiers. Despite popular perception that doctors recklessly erred on the side of amputation, surgeons labored mightily to adjust to the medical quagmire of war. And as Brian Craig Miller shows in Empty Sleeves, the hospital emerged as the first arena where southerners faced the stark reality of what amputation would mean for men and women and their respective positions in southern society after the war. Thus, southern women, through nursing and benevolent care, prepared men for the challenges of returning home defeated and disabled.

Still, amputation was a stark fact for many soldiers. On their return, southern amputees remained dependent on their spouses, peers, and dilapidated state governments to reconstruct their shattered manhood and meet the challenges brought on by their newfound disabilities. It was in this context that Confederate patients based their medical care decisions on how comrades, families, and society would view the empty sleeve. In this highly original and deeply researched work, Miller explores the ramifications of amputation on the Confederacy both during and after the Civil War and sheds light on how dependency and disability reshaped southern society.

About the Author
Brian Craig Miller is associate professor of history at Emporia State University. He is the forthcoming editor of the journal Civil War History and the author of John Bell Hood and the Fight for Civil War Memory and The American Memory: Americans and Their History to 1877.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0820343323/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

Disclaimer: This post is neither a recommendation nor solicitation by CivilWarTalk or Chellers. It is solely for informational purposes.
 
View attachment 51958

Brian Craig Miller (Author)
University of Georgia Press (March 15, 2015)

The Civil War acted like a battering ram on human beings, shattering both flesh and psyche of thousands of soldiers. Despite popular perception that doctors recklessly erred on the side of amputation, surgeons labored mightily to adjust to the medical quagmire of war. And as Brian Craig Miller shows in Empty Sleeves, the hospital emerged as the first arena where southerners faced the stark reality of what amputation would mean for men and women and their respective positions in southern society after the war. Thus, southern women, through nursing and benevolent care, prepared men for the challenges of returning home defeated and disabled.

Still, amputation was a stark fact for many soldiers. On their return, southern amputees remained dependent on their spouses, peers, and dilapidated state governments to reconstruct their shattered manhood and meet the challenges brought on by their newfound disabilities. It was in this context that Confederate patients based their medical care decisions on how comrades, families, and society would view the empty sleeve. In this highly original and deeply researched work, Miller explores the ramifications of amputation on the Confederacy both during and after the Civil War and sheds light on how dependency and disability reshaped southern society.

About the Author
Brian Craig Miller is associate professor of history at Emporia State University. He is the forthcoming editor of the journal Civil War History and the author of John Bell Hood and the Fight for Civil War Memory and The American Memory: Americans and Their History to 1877.

http://www.amazon.com/Empty-Sleeves-Amputation-Civil-Uncivil/dp/0820343323/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416156428&sr=1-1&keywords=empty sleeves

Disclaimer: This post is neither a recommendation nor solicitation by CivilWarTalk or Chellers. It is solely for informational purposes.

http://civilwartalk.com/threads/j-e-hanger-lost-his-leg-but-not-his-ingenuity.88186/#post-697737
 
View attachment 51958

Brian Craig Miller (Author)
University of Georgia Press (March 15, 2015)

The Civil War acted like a battering ram on human beings, shattering both flesh and psyche of thousands of soldiers. Despite popular perception that doctors recklessly erred on the side of amputation, surgeons labored mightily to adjust to the medical quagmire of war. And as Brian Craig Miller shows in Empty Sleeves, the hospital emerged as the first arena where southerners faced the stark reality of what amputation would mean for men and women and their respective positions in southern society after the war. Thus, southern women, through nursing and benevolent care, prepared men for the challenges of returning home defeated and disabled.

Still, amputation was a stark fact for many soldiers. On their return, southern amputees remained dependent on their spouses, peers, and dilapidated state governments to reconstruct their shattered manhood and meet the challenges brought on by their newfound disabilities. It was in this context that Confederate patients based their medical care decisions on how comrades, families, and society would view the empty sleeve. In this highly original and deeply researched work, Miller explores the ramifications of amputation on the Confederacy both during and after the Civil War and sheds light on how dependency and disability reshaped southern society.

About the Author
Brian Craig Miller is associate professor of history at Emporia State University. He is the forthcoming editor of the journal Civil War History and the author of John Bell Hood and the Fight for Civil War Memory and The American Memory: Americans and Their History to 1877.

http://www.amazon.com/Empty-Sleeves-Amputation-Civil-Uncivil/dp/0820343323/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1416156428&sr=1-1&keywords=empty sleeves

Disclaimer: This post is neither a recommendation nor solicitation by CivilWarTalk or Chellers. It is solely for informational purposes.

http://civilwartalk.com/threads/j-e-hanger-artificial-limb-innovator.87940/#post-694026
 
I had heard this fact mentioned somewhere and found it on this blog about medicine in the Civil War. Very interesting.

After the war in 1866, North Carolina became the first state to start a program for thousands of amputees to receive artificial limbs. The program offered veterans free accommodations and transportation by rail; 1,550 veterans contacted the program by mail. During the same year, the State of Mississippi spent more than half its yearly budget providing veterans with artificial limbs.

http://jordynredwood.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-civil-war-and-prosthetic-limbs-12.html
 
His soldier record is told in the regimental history. It may be epitomized thus: An unknown, friendless Irish boy; a private soldier; Sergeant-Major; Lieutenant; Adjutant; Captain; Staff Officer; the trusted friend and subaltern of Millikin, Cupp and Long; every rank attained and every confidence secured by demonstrated merit…..

In that heroic charge of the regiment at Stone's River, riding by the side of the chivalric Millikin, he received a terrible wound in the groin; a moment after, as he lay in his blood, he saw his Colonel and best friend fall a few feet away, while at the same time he knew that his old Captain, who first of all had recognized his worth, was dead on the same field.
It was months before he was fit for duty, but he was in his saddle when the order came to advance in the summer of
1863….

Shot through the right shoulder and knocked from his horse in Kilpatrick's charge at Lovejoy Station in August, 1864, he rose to his feet and, waving his sword in his left hand, followed the charging column through the enemy's lines. For seventy-five miles he rode uncomplainingly over rough roads under a broiling August sun in an ambulance: all the weary way, though in intense pain, cheering his wounded companions.

The morning after reaching our camp within the lines, I was awakened by Surgeon Canaan and asked to go with him to see "Scotty." On the way he told me that Scott's life could only be saved by amputating his right arm, which he refused to permit. When I reached his ambulance he welcomed me with a smile and cheerful words. I sat by his side in the ambulance and talked for an hour. He then told me the story of his short but eventful life. I urged him to let the Surgeon have his way. He answered, "No. To amputate my arm it must be dislocated at the shoulder. That will leave me maimed and disfigured. I can die, but I can not fight the battle of life alone without my good right arm. I have no mother, no wife, no relative in America; except my comrades there are none to mourn my death; I want to live, but will not purchase life at such a cost." No persuasion could induce him to consent to the operation, and after lingering some weeks, he died.

In the center of one of the circles of dead in the National Cemetery at Chattanooga, on a slope looking out toward the East and catching the first rays of the morning sun as it rises above the hallowed heights of Missionary Ridge, there is a little mound with a little head-stone marked "Captain William H. Scott, First Ohio Cavalry."

No kindred have ever visited it, no woman's tears have ever moistened it: but under that mound lies one whose life was as clean, whose brain was as clear, whose heart was as true and loyal, whose soul was as chivalric and unselfish as the story of any land or age can furnish.


Source: pages 281-282

I just realized this older thread was focused on Southern amputation issues, so apologies if this post is out of place! I was looking for a thread that covered the trauma soldiers faced by being disabled in any way by amputations during the war.
 
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View attachment 51958

Brian Craig Miller (Author)
University of Georgia Press (March 15, 2015)

The Civil War acted like a battering ram on human beings, shattering both flesh and psyche of thousands of soldiers. Despite popular perception that doctors recklessly erred on the side of amputation, surgeons labored mightily to adjust to the medical quagmire of war. And as Brian Craig Miller shows in Empty Sleeves, the hospital emerged as the first arena where southerners faced the stark reality of what amputation would mean for men and women and their respective positions in southern society after the war. Thus, southern women, through nursing and benevolent care, prepared men for the challenges of returning home defeated and disabled.

Still, amputation was a stark fact for many soldiers. On their return, southern amputees remained dependent on their spouses, peers, and dilapidated state governments to reconstruct their shattered manhood and meet the challenges brought on by their newfound disabilities. It was in this context that Confederate patients based their medical care decisions on how comrades, families, and society would view the empty sleeve. In this highly original and deeply researched work, Miller explores the ramifications of amputation on the Confederacy both during and after the Civil War and sheds light on how dependency and disability reshaped southern society.

About the Author
Brian Craig Miller is associate professor of history at Emporia State University. He is the forthcoming editor of the journal Civil War History and the author of John Bell Hood and the Fight for Civil War Memory and The American Memory: Americans and Their History to 1877.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0820343323/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

Disclaimer: This post is neither a recommendation nor solicitation by CivilWarTalk or Chellers. It is solely for informational purposes.
Miss you
 
View attachment 51958

Brian Craig Miller (Author)
University of Georgia Press (March 15, 2015)

The Civil War acted like a battering ram on human beings, shattering both flesh and psyche of thousands of soldiers. Despite popular perception that doctors recklessly erred on the side of amputation, surgeons labored mightily to adjust to the medical quagmire of war. And as Brian Craig Miller shows in Empty Sleeves, the hospital emerged as the first arena where southerners faced the stark reality of what amputation would mean for men and women and their respective positions in southern society after the war. Thus, southern women, through nursing and benevolent care, prepared men for the challenges of returning home defeated and disabled.

Still, amputation was a stark fact for many soldiers. On their return, southern amputees remained dependent on their spouses, peers, and dilapidated state governments to reconstruct their shattered manhood and meet the challenges brought on by their newfound disabilities. It was in this context that Confederate patients based their medical care decisions on how comrades, families, and society would view the empty sleeve. In this highly original and deeply researched work, Miller explores the ramifications of amputation on the Confederacy both during and after the Civil War and sheds light on how dependency and disability reshaped southern society.

About the Author
Brian Craig Miller is associate professor of history at Emporia State University. He is the forthcoming editor of the journal Civil War History and the author of John Bell Hood and the Fight for Civil War Memory and The American Memory: Americans and Their History to 1877.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0820343323/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

Disclaimer: This post is neither a recommendation nor solicitation by CivilWarTalk or Chellers. It is solely for informational purposes.
This book is available on the library digital service Hoopla as an E-book and is a standard borrow.
 
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