Treatment of wounds received in battle

Sorry about that Custers Luck! I had to put the Refuse into a plastic bag so we could take it to the front to be collected tomorrow morning in the snow. It's pretty cold up in Wisconsin. I suffered from snow deprivation as a child in the deep south. Ah well. Any way - This story is about Custer so it is for you. Mr. MC. C. Wrote the new lyrics to "Dixie" to tell his eleven sons which one should become the lawyer in charge of his law office, and who should be in charge of his sugar crops, and which sons would be taking care of the lumber business, and which sons would be managing the livery stables, and which sons would be managing the food crops, and who would be in charge of the cotton? and who would be in charge of the stocks and bonds and travel to and fro from New York, or possibly London if this War should be won or lost.

Some of the lyrics were: If I should fall in the war my own dears
Put away your cares and all your fears I Pray
Look away Dry your tears Oh my own.
Just Play a round of Dixie - and Dance - for me -
A Virginia Reel in the Shady Grove where we loved and laughed together
Don't you cry - my own - For I'll be with you always

Little George will beat his drums - Oh, Mary Dear, you're not alone
Wear your red shawl - you're safe and warm - and my arms you'll feel around you.
Jonathon shall read the Law and Michael too shall pass the bar they'll study hard
While Angels guard the House and all the yard for Katie
So Play that round of Dixie and dance for me
A Virginia Reel in the Shady Grove This is no time for Crying
Don't Cry My Dears, For I am there Beside you.


His song mentions every member of the family. But he didn't take into account that all of his sons could die as well as himself. For war has no respect for whether it is right for a child to go before a parent. His first wife had died when his oldest son was only about 9 years old and too young to understand it all. Mary Clothilde was their mother now, and the whole family had accepted her as their only mother. When the eldest three boys had fallen in the war and Mary had received the letter that told of their death, she had written to her husband asking him what they had said, if they were in pain, had he held them, had he assured them that she too had loved them? For when He had died, his possessions had been sent back home, and that letter had been carried by him through the war, and it came back to the little play house.
(but - I am getting ahead of the story)

When the first three died - Mary Clothilde wrote, "How did my babies die? Did they suffer long? My dearest, I know that you are in pain, for I myself can hardly breathe with the pain of this, but I must know! Did they suffer long? Did you Tell them that I love them too? Did you hold them as they died. Did you kiss them? Were they buried with their prayer books? With a rosary? With love? My Heart is broken that I shall never again hear their voices, or touch them. To think that they shall never again enter the doorway of our home again. Oh my dear, the pain is too great to bear. I do not even know who I am without them. I was Mary Clothilde Mc Cameron The mother of 12 Children and now, what am I? Mary Clothilde, the Mother of 9 living children and three in the arms of the angels. I know that I should be grateful that I had them for so long, and that I had them when they were young, and that she had so little of them when they were young, that she left them in my care, and they were hers, and that it is her time with them, But I Want them back. Oh, I want them so!"

With each soldier that Mary Clothilde nursed back to health, she rejoiced, and with each death, she despaired. I cannot read her letter without crying. That poor mother. In her journal, she tells how she won the heart of the oldest boy when she first came to be their mother and it is the most wonderful story. but I really want to tell you how Custer comes into this tale.

In the Red River Campaign - Mary C. had a hospital in her home. (actually she had 3 hospitals - a confederate one, and a union one, that the Union knew about and a hidden one for Confederate officers that the union didn't know about.) Mary C. and her husband had taken in two young girls from Ireland years before who had been sent to America by their families because of poverty and famine. (their family meant to come later but hadn't come yet) Mary C. couldn't bear to use them as servants, she raised them as daughters of the house. It just happened that there were 4 Irish young women who were travelling with the Union army doing some cooking and laundry and other work with them and they pointed out the officers hospital to the union army. they had to do something about the house rather than doing something like jailing Mary C. they decided to take every stick of furniture and every book and every article of clothing out of the house and burn an empty building to the ground. That was to be the punishment for the crime. They also left the Irish girls there with Mary C. Because they didn't want anything to do with them any longer after their treachery. Mary and her little girl Moved into the "Garconiere" or Boys House which was quite large, as it was built for 11 boys and their friends. and well furnished already, not to mention all of the furnishings that the Army had carried over to the Garconierre and to the Law Office and to the Play House and other buildings on the property before they left.

Mary C. was never the same after her home ha been burned to the ground. Mary was in what seems like a catatonic state of some sort. She was in a very frail state mentally certainly, but that wasn't the largest of Mary Clothilde's problems. The 4 Irish Women were stealing from her, and one night, they took off in a wagon with a large amount of valuable items and they had set fire to the garconierre right before they left. Mary C. and her daughter and the two other Irish girls came out of doors with the elderly pharmacist who had helped Mary C. with her hospital. The Pharmacist was going to be taking the Irish girls to the east coast to meet their Papa. But he gave the little girl enough money to live off of for a few months and an address to write to him if she were to require more later. He also helped her to move into the playhouse with her mother before he left.

Mary C. Ended up dying of typhoid fever about two months later. and one by one Katie's brothers died. When the war was over she was living in the play house, and the fifty or so double houses that her Papa had built for the free black people who were share croppers for his land. (Scottish People Never kept slaves - for they themselves had been held as slaves. The African Slave system was based on the White Slavery system that came before it) Any way, The Free Black People had seen the cruel way that the town people had treated young Katie and her mother, and decided that they weren't going to stay and find out what they were going to be treated like, for likely they were only going to be re enslaved. So they all lickety split took up their freedom papers and headed for the North. The Towns People just up and claimed the shotgun double houses for themselves. Some of them even took two houses and joined them together like dogtrot houses. Then - they shunned little Katie, because she was just a poor child who lived in that little two story cottage no bigger than a playhouse. (And they had stolen their grand big double dogtrots from her father's great store! the wretches!)

Finally, One hot afternoon, Katie saw two of her brothers coming home after the war was over. The twins were returning! When they were nearly there she realized that one of them was either dreadfully ill, or horribly wounded. She didn't know which was worse. She began to pray for the ability to cure him, even while she knew she would not be able to do anything for him. She wasn't able to. He lived only two days. Katie was only able to run for the priest for her brother so that he could have last rites before his death. She and her brother made sure he had a proper burial and then, they worked on making a good home life for each other in the old playhouse.

The old pharmacist sent them more money and sent word that he had learned that their father had been in a Union Prison Camp and had been Ill and would be trying to make his way home as soon as he was better., and Katie's brother took her to the general store to buy her a winter coat. The Townies had been raiding the out buildings where all of the items had been carried by the Union Army and the owners of the General Store were no exception. Katie was delighted to have her brother buy the red coat that her mother had once owned and had made over for one of her Irish sisters that she had always been too little to wear before. She was especially delighted that she got to buy and wear it "before the gen'l store owner's daughter who was fat and smelled like a pole cat because she didn't rub alum under her arm pits, had tried to shove her round body into it like a big round sausage." . Katie even went to confession after buying the coat because she thought she had committed a sin for thinking such mean thoughts about the gen'l store owner's fat daughter who smelled like a pole cat. After her confession, Katie and her remaining brother went home, and they had to pass the post office on the way. The Lady who worked there called to Katie's Brother, and he went in, He was given a rather large parcel, and it contained many of their father's personal effects and some of their mothers things as well. There was a letter that explained that their father had died some days before.

The two of them decided that they would do what their father had requested when he had first gone to the war, they would go to the grove and play Dixie and sing the song lyrics that their Father had written.
The war was over, They didn't have to worry about who would do what anymore. There was no large plantation, or stable or Law Office anymore. The Lumber Yard and Land had been stolen by "the Commumity" The Community had taken everything, except for the playhouse. and Katie's brother felt like a failure. Still, the two of them went to the grove with the old guitar.

As Duncan began to play, Katie heard a noise and told him so. they looked about, saw nothing, and they started over. this happened three times, and finally they began to sing. Suddenly - a group of soldiers show up in union uniforms. Custer had stopped in the Area on his way to the west and one of his men had heard "that treason song" and didn't like it. He told them not to sing it any more or he could have them shot or hanged. and he told them if they sang it again he would surely hang one of them.

They tried to tell him that they were not singing anything that was treasonous, that it was simply a requiem for their father. (If the townies had had one ounce of care for these orphaned children the union officer would never have done what he did. however, the townies were not kind people, they were selfish and self absorbed. they could not care about those children, that would take time away from caring for themselves.

The brother and sister waited for a bit, then they tried again, and the Union soldiers heard them again, and they hanged Duncan right in front of his little sister. Then, The Lt. took the guitar and would not give it to the little girl. She had to run to the town to try to get the mean townies to help her to cut her brother down, and they wouldn't. Katie was disconsolate. The Lt. got himself drunk and fell down asleep near the playhouse and Katie noticed that she could steal back her guitar that night. she also saw that his money was blowing out of his coat pocket. so she put a gold cross and chain in his pocket and took all of the money out of his pocket and went to visit Mr. Custer the next morning and to tell him all about it.

Custer was so disgusted with the Lt. he had him shipped back to Washington City under guard. He didn't trust himself or his men to administer discipline. They'd have killed him. then, he asked the little girl if she could play and sing the song or them, and so she did. He and his men were "all very deeply touched" he wrote to his Libby. Then, Custer and his men spent the rest of the day making young Katie very happy. they even went down to the grove to dance for her Daddy with her.

That evening Custer sent 6 men to guard her as she slept in the playhouse. He went to write and telegraph his Libby that he was going to be sending a Little girl home to her that he wanted to adopt with her. He had found a child that he wanted to raise with her. An angel.

The next morning , when Custer went to tell Katie all about his plans, he looked into the window of the playhouse, and he saw her asleep on her bed with her little arm outflung upon her guitar he noticed that her chest neither rose nor fell and that it never would again. His only comfort was to be that he and his men had made her life happy in her last day of life when she had been so miserable, he and his men had been able to bring her joy.

He hadn't even told her that he wanted to become her new Papa yet.

He had that tomb built for that little girl who had only touched his life for one single day.
I feel rather sorry for This General who gets such a bad rap sometimes, the Indians hate him almost as badly as they hate Jackson. Yet Here he has brought joy to a child who has had a life of misery and has just witnessed her last living relative being brutally murdered before her eyes, and he has tenderly cared for her in such a kindly way, that she dies with a smile on her face.

My ancestor even mentions the family once when they are in Mansfield but this is before anyone dies, or Custer goes there of course. she just mentions that Mary C. upon learning of the two faced nature of this wicked young woman and her nasty mother who are visiting and have taken Mary C.'s hospitality without telling her of all of the antics of the daughter's past misbehavior in Sugar Country, Mary C. makes an excuse saying they must find other lodgings.
AMAZING, I will treasure this story you have shared its so heart wrenching, but her story from the past like a breeze blows into the future, so she lives on.
I try to see every ones point of view on Custer , like the rest of us he was seen through different eyes and showed different sides to his self depending on his relationship with people. a soldier, a friend, a jack *** to others, and the husband with a heart of gold.they all had different point of views and they were all right.
What intrigues me about Custer besides being his own man is that he found the beauty in the thing around him even on his way to battle, he would write to Libby how beautiful the country side was and describe the smell of flowers or how well the water tasted,or the joy of eating onions (yuk) I think he loved life and the wonders in it. he was a kid growing up in a war, like so many of the others.
 
Though the nature of sepsis was not yet understood a few physicians were aware of the work of Semmelweis in Austria where a connection between cleanliness and higher survival rates in child birthing wards was noted. Also the same during the Crimean War when Florence Nightingale showed up and took over the hospitals. Using chlorophorm and ether as topical agents probably had antiseptic as well as anesthetic properties. On two occasions iodine and carbolic acid, two well known antiseptics, were applied by surgeons to wounds. One was with general Gordon whose wife treated him as he convalesced and she was told to paint the wound frequently with iodine. The other was a Union surgeon who requested
carbolic acid to wash his surgical instruments. A few medicos in the Civil War had accidentally stumbled onto a practice that would radically alter the ability to survive battlefield wounds in the near future. Tragically, for most wounded troops it would come too late for them.
 
The other was a Union surgeon who requested
carbolic acid to wash his surgical instruments.

I'd be very curious for more information on that. Who was he? What was his reasoning? That seems odd because it's a practice which would become incredibly common a decade or so later but would be a strange out-of-the-blue choice in the period. Do we know from a pre-1865 source that he was actually doing this during the war, so there's no chance he could have been misremembering in hindsight?
 
I was afraid of this. I read constantly, books, magazines, old newspapers, this website. I read this about a year ago and mentioned it to a nurse who is into reenactment. For the life of me I don't know where I read it but I do recall that the story, I think more likely in a magazine, was that the surgeon picked up some shrapnel in his thigh and wanted to treat himself. He therefore requisitioned what he would need and that included the carbolic acid for the instruments. I will ransack my stack of old magazines and see if I can find it to get the surgeon's name and the complete story. I know that I was surprised to read that too, but was equally surprised by the story of Mrs. Gordon being instructed to paint the general's wound with iodine. If I find it I'll write about right here.
 
I was afraid of this. I read constantly, books, magazines, old newspapers, this website. I read this about a year ago and mentioned it to a nurse who is into reenactment. For the life of me I don't know where I read it but I do recall that the story, I think more likely in a magazine, was that the surgeon picked up some shrapnel in his thigh and wanted to treat himself. He therefore requisitioned what he would need and that included the carbolic acid for the instruments. I will ransack my stack of old magazines and see if I can find it to get the surgeon's name and the complete story. I know that I was surprised to read that too, but was equally surprised by the story of Mrs. Gordon being instructed to paint the general's wound with iodine. If I find it I'll write about right here.

Painting a wound with iodine wasn't unusual at all--it had been used as a topical medicine for various problems for years. For example, here's a booklet on Practical Remarks on the Use of Iodine, Locally Applied, in Various Surgical Diseases, from 1839.

There just isn't anything equivalent to that for carbolic acid in the period, though, and a doctor using carbolic acid to wash instruments during the Civil War is quite a remarkable claim.
 
"Civil War surgeons had not only iodine but carbolic acid as well, and a long list of "disinfectants" such as bichloride of mercury, sodium hypochlorite, and other agents. The trouble was that the wound was allowed to become a raging inferno before disinfectants were tried. However, one of the good features of Civil War surgery was that anesthetics were almost always used in operations or the dressing of painful wounds. It was practically universal in the Union, and despite mythology, anesthetics were very seldom unavailable in the Confederacy. The almost universal favorite was chloroform, probably because ether's explosive quality made it dangerous at a field hospital operating table, where there was always the possibility of enemy gunfire."
http://www.civilwarhome.com/medicinehistory.htm
 
In his 1867 paper, Antiseptic Principle of the Practice of Surgery, Dr. Joseph Lister advocated the use of carbolic acid (phenol) as a method of ensuring that any germs present were killed. He advocated spraying carbolic acid during surgery and covering wounds with bandages soaked in carbolic acid would significantly reduce wound infections. This was the beginning of modern antiseptic practice. However, some Civil War surgeons already used carbolic acid for antiseptic and disinfecting purposes. The Encyclopedia of Civil War Medicine By Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein p.26
 
Yes, this is not the story I was relating but in the book, A People at War, by Scott Nelson and Carol Sheriff, p108"...Joseph Lister would demonstrate that carbolic acid, a chemical used by some Civil War physicians as a disinfectant, could have been used to prevent infection...". At least they were close to making the discovery of sepsis. I sure wish I could find the other story told by that doctor.
 
However, some Civil War surgeons already used carbolic acid for antiseptic and disinfecting purposes. The Encyclopedia of Civil War Medicine By Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein p.26

On their instruments?

That's the key. That was the discovery that changed everything just post-war.

Here are some Sanitary Commission articles on carbolic acid that talk about using it as a disinfectant, but to prevent odor, not to disinfect surgical instruments:

http://books.google.com/books?id=_h5ZAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA60
Better that all substances at present employed as disinfectants and deodorants were at once prohibited by the Medical Department, than that such agents should practically tend to be regarded as substitutes for a pure atmosphere.
(see page 63, top right, for how carbolic acid gets rid of "noxious effluvia."

http://books.google.com/books?id=cGQ2AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA560
In reference to the second point, viz., improvement of the local atmosphere of wards, a barrel of carbolic acid has been received, and turned over to the proper officer for experimental use, in accordance with Prof. Gibbs' suggestion that it promises more than any other disinfecting agent... Prof. Gibbs' suggestion made two years ago, to use carbolic acid upon the walls of wards, as a paint or wash, is worthy of trial.
 
Yes, this is not the story I was relating but in the book, A People at War, by Scott Nelson and Carol Sheriff, p108"...Joseph Lister would demonstrate that carbolic acid, a chemical used by some Civil War physicians as a disinfectant, could have been used to prevent infection...". At least they were close to making the discovery of sepsis. I sure wish I could find the other story told by that doctor.
It isn't much of a leap to believe that some Civil War surgeons may have used carbolic acid to soak their surgical instruments in. However, I find no evidence of this practice so far. (I'm getting closer though :smile:) It should be noted that Lister's research took place in Europe, and was inspired by Louis Pasteur's germ theory of putrefaction.

CSA officer and assistant surgeon, Dr. George H. Tichenor introduced antiseptic surgery during his Civil War service.
 
A United States surgeon general once remarked that the Civil War was fought “at the end of the medical Middle
Ages.” Anesthesia had been introduced 15 years prior, but germ theory—the theory that microorganisms are
the causes of many diseases—was not widely accepted at first in the medical community, many of whom considered it “unscientific.” Many surgeons did not wash their hands and tools between surgeries, because they did
not understand that germs could be transferred to the patient through contamination. In the early 1860s, French
chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur conducted experiments on eliminating microorganisms in a liquid
using heat (pasteurization), adding to the support for germ theory. In August of 1865, a British surgeon named
Joseph Lister discovered the antiseptic properties of carbolic acid and used it to sterilize wounds and medical
tools. However, soldiers in the Civil War did not benefit from those medical advances.

http://www.ket.org/artstoolkit../statedivided/gallery/resources/saw/saw_more.pdf
 
"Hospital sanitation was certainly not up to today’s standards, but most hospitals would not have been considered unsanitary for their time. Surgical cleanliness and the use of antiseptics as we know it today did not exist during the Civil War. Lister established the practice of antiseptic surgery using carbolic acid in 1867, a few years after the war was over. Germ theory was unknown, and the rigorous cleaning of hands and surgical instruments and use of antiseptic dressings did not occur until after the Civil War. However, some of the medicines and chemicals used by Civil War surgeons did have antiseptic qualities. Hospital cleanliness was considered important and the chlorine, bromine and charcoal used for this purpose contributed to a more “antiseptic” atmosphere for the General Hospitals." http://www.teachthecivilwar.com/blog/updated-health-and-medicine-during-the-civil-war/
 
I specifically quoted "He advocated spraying carbolic acid during surgery and covering wounds with bandages soaked in carbolic acid would significantly reduce wound infections."

??? Yes, Lister advocated that in 1867. It was new and radical when Lister proposed it in 1867, and his discovery is famous and introduced the era of washing instruments with carbolic acid. That's my whole point. I'm looking for evidence that a surgeon was doing it during the Civil War, before Lister recommended it and changed everything.

It isn't much of a leap to believe that some Civil War surgeons may have used carbolic acid to soak their surgical instruments in.

I dunno, I think it's a pretty big leap. One can find a variety of ways to disinfect the air and/or make it smell better, and a variety of ways to clean bedding, clothes and bandages to prevent contagion from smallpox and such, but are there any examples of using any sort of disinfectant to clean instruments? Those Sanitary Commission articles are still concerned about noxious effluvia, just a year or two before Lister.

CSA officer and assistant surgeon, Dr. George H. Tichenor introduced antiseptic surgery during his Civil War service.

Here's his wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._Tichenor

It doesn't say he introduced alcohol as an antiseptic it to surgery; it says he used alcohol to wash wounds. Washing wounds with alcohol was common, due to its cooling influence, and in fact it looks like a "refrigerant" is what Tichenor recommended his patent medicine for in the 1880s: Dr. G. H. Tichenor's Antiseptic Refrigerant for Wounds.

I'm guessing he developed a topical patent medicine in the antiseptic era, and made up a backstory to go with it about discovering antiseptic surgery before antiseptic surgery was cool (no pun intended), when in fact what he did during the Civil War was what most doctors did: cool down inflamed areas with refrigerants.

The company's web page at http://www.drtichenor.com/about/history repeats the story about washing his wound with alcohol, then makes an unsupported claim about surgery: "Dr. Tichenor went on to pioneer the use of antiseptic surgery during the Civil War, and saved the lives and limbs of many soldiers." Call me cynical, but I'm not convinced by an advertising claim from a patent medicine company, that Tichenor was actually performing antiseptic surgery, rather than just washing wounds with a cooling lotion of alcohol as doctors had done for years. The opportunity for 20:20 hindsight and an incentive to sell medicine tend to introduce a bias that wouldn't be found if there are references about Tichenor before his patent medicine days.

Here's a random example of applying alcohol after surgery as a refrigerant, in a book on Operative Surgery as far back as 1851, and it wasn't new then:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Cj4sAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA48
Refrigerants.--Sprinkling with very cold water, the applicatin of moistened cloths on the wound or neighbourhood, the application of powdered ice, evaporating lotions of water and alcohol, ether and water, the mixture of Schmucker, or lastly, camphor in powder, between two wet cloths, which is sprinkled when the water has evaporated.

Here's the famous Confederate surgeon J. J. Chisholm on leg wounds, writing in 1866:
http://books.google.com/books?id=TpwEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA689
The limb should be kept at absolute rest... To the surface about the joint are continuously applied cold evaporating lotions, of which iced water is the simplest and best. This, however, can be medicated so as to increase the evaporation and the refrigereation of the external articular surfaces.

So washing with alcohol or a similar refrigerant was well within normal medical practice, but that's not antiseptic surgery, and the purpose was to cool, not to kill germs.
 
AMAZING, I will treasure this story you have shared its so heart wrenching, but her story from the past like a breeze blows into the future, so she lives on.
I try to see every ones point of view on Custer , like the rest of us he was seen through different eyes and showed different sides to his self depending on his relationship with people. a soldier, a friend, a jack *** to others, and the husband with a heart of gold.they all had different point of views and they were all right.
What intrigues me about Custer besides being his own man is that he found the beauty in the thing around him even on his way to battle, he would write to Libby how beautiful the country side was and describe the smell of flowers or how well the water tasted,or the joy of eating onions (yuk) I think he loved life and the wonders in it. he was a kid growing up in a war, like so many of the others.
Hello Mr. Custer's Luck, It's Becca's Cousin again. I am so glad that you enjoyed the story of Katie Mc C. I have treasured that story since I have learned of it. My children have as well. I Think you are right about Custer. He grew up in a time when our nation was still so much more free than even we are today. (though not for every one yet) Mr. Custer still was in that time a very young man, and he was trying to make sense of what was going on about him and trying to justify how this vast free country could possibly be at war with itself? We stood The latest and If we failed - The Last Nation to ever - On This Earth - Try The Grand Experiment of - A Free Government By The People. He was trying to keep the experiment from failing in any way that he could. He had once been quoted by one of his friends at West Point as having said that he believed that South had every right to secede, But - the only way the Nation could remain solid and free, and a not monarchial government as the founders had created it was if we all remained united. It was the job of the Union Army to preserve it at all costs, even if it meant crushing the states' rights as the Constitution had guaranteed them.
The war weighed very heavily on that young man's shoulders. He didn't always agree with what he had to do. He certainly did love his country, and he truly loved life, and more than all of that - He loved his Libby. It is a true shame that he did not get to spend a lifetime with her.

Wouldn't it have been a grand thing if he would have been able to send little Katie to his Libby to raise? His Libby would have dearly loved to have helped him to make amends with his conscience for real or imagined slights that he feared he may have committed upon the residents of the south by raising a child of the south with love. I hope that Gen'l Custer realized that he actually had made up for anything he had imagined he might have done under orders by making that little girl happy enough to pass from this world into the next with a smile upon her face.

That little girl had been through all the cellars of hell in her short life, the day before her death, she watched her last living relative, her only surviving brother, hanged before her eyes! Then, the cruel officer who did the evil deed, took the family guitar, and refused to give it back to her! Still, this brave little girl ran to the town which was 2 tenths of a mile away from the playhouse where the shady grove of trees was where they had gone to sing the song lyrics her father had written as a requiem, even if they no longer had the property. Even if her brother had written the night before that he was ashamed that he couldn't save any part of his father's grand dreams and life that he had made for all of them. The War, and the Towns People had come and taken all of it away. "I had to steal back the arbor that my brothers and I made for mother and I stole back the little playhouse that used to set back by the house that the union army burned down. I used the little playhouse to make the big one larger, as we are living in it. The Towns People have stolen away the Law Office for their own homes and they have stolen away the cottages and made them into larger houses for themselves. They have taken all of the furniture that you bought for our Mamma. I have nothing but what our sister has managed to safeguard, and that isn't much. Today we shall sing your song, but we do not sing about what we shall be taking over from you, I sing about what I have failed to protect, and what I have lost and know that I am not man enough to regain. I am sorry father, I am so unworthy of your great dreams for me.".

The letter that boy wrote still sat in that care taker's papers when I went to research so many years ago. I cherish the words of the boy. I sorrow for him. Custer sorrowed for him. When he read the grief of the boy's raw pain that he had felt that he'd failed his father by not being able to defend his home from the greedy neighbors who'd stolen it all away, and then they had not come to help the children to sing their father home. If the neighbors had been with the two children, (The boy was only about 16 or 17 at most.) Katie was between 9 and 12 years old. If they'd been joined by their neighbors, they might have been protected, or at the very least, the soldier who had heard the tune of "Dixie" might have listened to the children's pleas and heard them out when they tried to explain that they were not singing a treason song, but a requiem to their dead father. Maybe, the towns people would have been able to dissuade him from hanging a teenaged boy who had lost everything his father had left him and his sister. But that is precisely the reason the towns people were not there. They were ashamed of what they had done to those children and were still doing to them. For they were still taking things from the property.

When Katie ran the 2 tenths of a mile to the town for aid, no one came to cut her brother down. They all turned away from that poor little girl. When she threw herself prostrate upon the ground to weep for her brother till she could weep no more and she fell asleep no towns people came to see if she was alright. Later that night, when the cruel officer who had ordered her brother hanged had drunk himself into a stupor and fell unconscious and snoring upon the ground about 15 feet from where Katie lay hidden in the bushes, there was no one to check on that little girl.

Katie noticed that the officer's money was sticking out of his coat in such a way that every once in a while, other soldiers would sneak up on him and steal out a couple of green backs. So, Little Katie thought, "I'll steal my guitar back too"", but, stealing was a crime. and she knew that she would be made to pay for it, so, she put her gold cross and chain into his pocket so she could retrieve it the next day, and took his money for safe keeping and she went to see Custer himself the next day, to give Custer the money back so he could get her gold cross and chain back for her. She knew Mr. Custer would give her a fair hearing. He was a general. He had to be better than this person.

When Custer heard her story - No wonder he had the officer put in chains and sent to Washington City for discipline, He said he didn't trust himself to discipline the man himself, nor any of his men. Could you? They lived in a time of honor. Still, it was clear that there were a few people who had NO honor. We live in a time where there is honor, but there is not as much of is as there was in Custer's day.

The people who were so uncaring in the town where little Katie lived had the grace to be sad when that child died. But no one was so touched by her as General Custer. The Towns People said That when Custer discovered that she was gone from the realm of the living, He screamed the word "No!", so loudly and so heart wrenchingly, they could all hear him two tenths of a mile away. That is why he put up the little playhouse tomb for his little friend, "The daughter of his heart" and his and his men's very own "Angel Un aware".
 
Hello Mr. Custer's Luck, It's Becca's Cousin again. I am so glad that you enjoyed the story of Katie Mc C. I have treasured that story since I have learned of it. My children have as well. I Think you are right about Custer. He grew up in a time when our nation was still so much more free than even we are today. (though not for every one yet) Mr. Custer still was in that time a very young man, and he was trying to make sense of what was going on about him and trying to justify how this vast free country could possibly be at war with itself? We stood The latest and If we failed - The Last Nation to ever - On This Earth - Try The Grand Experiment of - A Free Government By The People. He was trying to keep the experiment from failing in any way that he could. He had once been quoted by one of his friends at West Point as having said that he believed that South had every right to secede, But - the only way the Nation could remain solid and free, and a not monarchial government as the founders had created it was if we all remained united. It was the job of the Union Army to preserve it at all costs, even if it meant crushing the states' rights as the Constitution had guaranteed them.
The war weighed very heavily on that young man's shoulders. He didn't always agree with what he had to do. He certainly did love his country, and he truly loved life, and more than all of that - He loved his Libby. It is a true shame that he did not get to spend a lifetime with her.

Wouldn't it have been a grand thing if he would have been able to send little Katie to his Libby to raise? His Libby would have dearly loved to have helped him to make amends with his conscience for real or imagined slights that he feared he may have committed upon the residents of the south by raising a child of the south with love. I hope that Gen'l Custer realized that he actually had made up for anything he had imagined he might have done under orders by making that little girl happy enough to pass from this world into the next with a smile upon her face.

That little girl had been through all the cellars of hell in her short life, the day before her death, she watched her last living relative, her only surviving brother, hanged before her eyes! Then, the cruel officer who did the evil deed, took the family guitar, and refused to give it back to her! Still, this brave little girl ran to the town which was 2 tenths of a mile away from the playhouse where the shady grove of trees was where they had gone to sing the song lyrics her father had written as a requiem, even if they no longer had the property. Even if her brother had written the night before that he was ashamed that he couldn't save any part of his father's grand dreams and life that he had made for all of them. The War, and the Towns People had come and taken all of it away. "I had to steal back the arbor that my brothers and I made for mother and I stole back the little playhouse that used to set back by the house that the union army burned down. I used the little playhouse to make the big one larger, as we are living in it. The Towns People have stolen away the Law Office for their own homes and they have stolen away the cottages and made them into larger houses for themselves. They have taken all of the furniture that you bought for our Mamma. I have nothing but what our sister has managed to safeguard, and that isn't much. Today we shall sing your song, but we do not sing about what we shall be taking over from you, I sing about what I have failed to protect, and what I have lost and know that I am not man enough to regain. I am sorry father, I am so unworthy of your great dreams for me.".

The letter that boy wrote still sat in that care taker's papers when I went to research so many years ago. I cherish the words of the boy. I sorrow for him. Custer sorrowed for him. When he read the grief of the boy's raw pain that he had felt that he'd failed his father by not being able to defend his home from the greedy neighbors who'd stolen it all away, and then they had not come to help the children to sing their father home. If the neighbors had been with the two children, (The boy was only about 16 or 17 at most.) Katie was between 9 and 12 years old. If they'd been joined by their neighbors, they might have been protected, or at the very least, the soldier who had heard the tune of "Dixie" might have listened to the children's pleas and heard them out when they tried to explain that they were not singing a treason song, but a requiem to their dead father. Maybe, the towns people would have been able to dissuade him from hanging a teenaged boy who had lost everything his father had left him and his sister. But that is precisely the reason the towns people were not there. They were ashamed of what they had done to those children and were still doing to them. For they were still taking things from the property.

When Katie ran the 2 tenths of a mile to the town for aid, no one came to cut her brother down. They all turned away from that poor little girl. When she threw herself prostrate upon the ground to weep for her brother till she could weep no more and she fell asleep no towns people came to see if she was alright. Later that night, when the cruel officer who had ordered her brother hanged had drunk himself into a stupor and fell unconscious and snoring upon the ground about 15 feet from where Katie lay hidden in the bushes, there was no one to check on that little girl.

Katie noticed that the officer's money was sticking out of his coat in such a way that every once in a while, other soldiers would sneak up on him and steal out a couple of green backs. So, Little Katie thought, "I'll steal my guitar back too"", but, stealing was a crime. and she knew that she would be made to pay for it, so, she put her gold cross and chain into his pocket so she could retrieve it the next day, and took his money for safe keeping and she went to see Custer himself the next day, to give Custer the money back so he could get her gold cross and chain back for her. She knew Mr. Custer would give her a fair hearing. He was a general. He had to be better than this person.

When Custer heard her story - No wonder he had the officer put in chains and sent to Washington City for discipline, He said he didn't trust himself to discipline the man himself, nor any of his men. Could you? They lived in a time of honor. Still, it was clear that there were a few people who had NO honor. We live in a time where there is honor, but there is not as much of is as there was in Custer's day.

The people who were so uncaring in the town where little Katie lived had the grace to be sad when that child died. But no one was so touched by her as General Custer. The Towns People said That when Custer discovered that she was gone from the realm of the living, He screamed the word "No!", so loudly and so heart wrenchingly, they could all hear him two tenths of a mile away. That is why he put up the little playhouse tomb for his little friend, "The daughter of his heart" and his and his men's very own "Angel Un aware".
Yes it got me thinking, how sad it truly was that they didnt have a child between them, that would have been such a comfort to libbie, even if it wasnt there own it still would have been apart of her Autie . I wonder if they had children if it would have changed how Custer lead his life after the war. would have a child changed the course he was on? you have to stop and think what Libbie meant to him,having a child might have slowed him down changed the way he thought, he loved family. He would have been a great father. I couldnt picture him still in the army or at least not taking the chances if things were different. I think that if he had a child, it might have been the only thing in life that would have saved his life.Its almost as tho his fate was sealed long before so a child could never enter the picture. I guess in the grand scheme of things he played his part in history.
 
??? Yes, Lister advocated that in 1867. It was new and radical when Lister proposed it in 1867, and his discovery is famous and introduced the era of washing instruments with carbolic acid. That's my whole point. I'm looking for evidence that a surgeon was doing it during the Civil War, before Lister recommended it and changed everything.

Doctor James Graham wrote a book about Disinfectants in 1857. It was published in Ohio. That wasn't even one of the big publishing houses like Blanchard and Lea. There were plenty of big books about Disinfectants by them. Doctor Watson who wrote many of the major textbooks for the medical schools has entire chapters dedicated to disinfection, and his books are published by Blanchard and Lea. Ericksen's Surgical TextBooks also talk about the need for strict cleanliness in surgery both before operating and stringent cleanliness after surgical procedures. Dr. Eriiksen stresses that strict cleanliness Must be observed to avoid inflammation.

In Doctor Graham's book "The Principles and Practice of Disinfection" He goes on to show that the practices of disinfecting wounds, as well as fumigating homes where the sick have been has been with humanity since times of antiquity. Heroditus mentions using Sulphur to fumigate a house by burning it. Pliny also mentions the use of Sulphur for fumigation , Pliny is a bit more sophisticated, his recipe is to burn sullphur and bitomen together to fumigate a house where severe illness had been. Homer mentions that Ulysses has to use oils and other fragrant incenses to rid a building of the scent of sickness, but only certain minerals can rid a pestilence.

In Napoleanic times, Chlorine is used to wash and boil the clothing and the bedding of the sick. Chloride of Lime is used to mop the floors and to hang around the beds of the contagion patients. Slaked Lime is used to fumigate the wards.
The use of Alcohol is also employed in boiling bedding, clothing and washing the floors where contagions are concerned.

If these things are mentioned in the Napoleanic Period, and in an 1857 book - they were certainly known and used in the American Civil War.

Also, There were Antiseptics and Disinfectants in the Supply Tables for the Hospital Stores for the US Army. The Army knew about the maloderous smells of gangrene, They white washed the walls of the gangrene tents often. (some say at least twice a week) Also, there were ground cloths that were painted with white enamel paint on the ground of every hospital tent in the Union Army. This was to render them waterproof. It kept down the insect population, and it made the floors of the hospital easier to keep clean you could then mop and bleach them. and use slaked lime to fumigate them.

The Medical Dictionary of the period was Dunglison's The Doctors of the day believed that contagions were spread by Animalcules, diminutive animals that could only be seen with a microscope were passing diseases that were contagions from one patient on to another by galloping unseen from bed to bed. That isn't exactly far from the truth, is it? By the way, Dunglison's Medical Dictionary, was edited by Doctor Robley Dunglison, who was Thomas Jefferson's Doctor. and Today's Medical School Students use the SAME dictionary, only, Steadman's is the name of it, because, that is the name of the new publisher. But hey, We are still basically they same, so it's the same dictionary, still good old Dunglison's, just edited by Steadman now, with the new stuff added.

I dunno, I think it's a pretty big leap. One can find a variety of ways to disinfect the air and/or make it smell better, and a variety of ways to clean bedding, clothes and bandages to prevent contagion from smallpox and such, but are there any examples of using any sort of disinfectant to clean instruments? Those Sanitary Commission articles are still concerned about noxious effluvia, just a year or two before Lister.



Here's his wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H._Tichenor

It doesn't say he introduced alcohol as an antiseptic it to surgery; it says he used alcohol to wash wounds. Washing wounds with alcohol was common, due to its cooling influence, and in fact it looks like a "refrigerant" is what Tichenor recommended his patent medicine for in the 1880s: Dr. G. H. Tichenor's Antiseptic Refrigerant for Wounds.

I'm guessing he developed a topical patent medicine in the antiseptic era, and made up a backstory to go with it about discovering antiseptic surgery before antiseptic surgery was cool (no pun intended), when in fact what he did during the Civil War was what most doctors did: cool down inflamed areas with refrigerants.

The company's web page at http://www.drtichenor.com/about/history repeats the story about washing his wound with alcohol, then makes an unsupported claim about surgery: "Dr. Tichenor went on to pioneer the use of antiseptic surgery during the Civil War, and saved the lives and limbs of many soldiers." Call me cynical, but I'm not convinced by an advertising claim from a patent medicine company, that Tichenor was actually performing antiseptic surgery, rather than just washing wounds with a cooling lotion of alcohol as doctors had done for years. The opportunity for 20:20 hindsight and an incentive to sell medicine tend to introduce a bias that wouldn't be found if there are references about Tichenor before his patent medicine days.

Here's a random example of applying alcohol after surgery as a refrigerant, in a book on Operative Surgery as far back as 1851, and it wasn't new then:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Cj4sAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA48


Here's the famous Confederate surgeon J. J. Chisholm on leg wounds, writing in 1866:
http://books.google.com/books?id=TpwEAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA689


So washing with alcohol or a similar refrigerant was well within normal medical practice, but that's not antiseptic surgery, and the purpose was to cool, not to kill germs.
Hello Mr. Custer's Luck, It's Becca's Cousin again. I am so glad that you enjoyed the story of Katie Mc C. I have treasured that story since I have learned of it. My children have as well. I Think you are right about Custer. He grew up in a time when our nation was still so much more free than even we are today. (though not for every one yet) Mr. Custer still was in that time a very young man, and he was trying to make sense of what was going on about him and trying to justify how this vast free country could possibly be at war with itself? We stood The latest and If we failed - The Last Nation to ever - On This Earth - Try The Grand Experiment of - A Free Government By The People. He was trying to keep the experiment from failing in any way that he could. He had once been quoted by one of his friends at West Point as having said that he believed that South had every right to secede, But - the only way the Nation could remain solid and free, and a not monarchial government as the founders had created it was if we all remained united. It was the job of the Union Army to preserve it at all costs, even if it meant crushing the states' rights as the Constitution had guaranteed them.
The war weighed very heavily on that young man's shoulders. He didn't always agree with what he had to do. He certainly did love his country, and he truly loved life, and more than all of that - He loved his Libby. It is a true shame that he did not get to spend a lifetime with her.

Wouldn't it have been a grand thing if he would have been able to send little Katie to his Libby to raise? His Libby would have dearly loved to have helped him to make amends with his conscience for real or imagined slights that he feared he may have committed upon the residents of the south by raising a child of the south with love. I hope that Gen'l Custer realized that he actually had made up for anything he had imagined he might have done under orders by making that little girl happy enough to pass from this world into the next with a smile upon her face.

That little girl had been through all the cellars of hell in her short life, the day before her death, she watched her last living relative, her only surviving brother, hanged before her eyes! Then, the cruel officer who did the evil deed, took the family guitar, and refused to give it back to her! Still, this brave little girl ran to the town which was 2 tenths of a mile away from the playhouse where the shady grove of trees was where they had gone to sing the song lyrics her father had written as a requiem, even if they no longer had the property. Even if her brother had written the night before that he was ashamed that he couldn't save any part of his father's grand dreams and life that he had made for all of them. The War, and the Towns People had come and taken all of it away. "I had to steal back the arbor that my brothers and I made for mother and I stole back the little playhouse that used to set back by the house that the union army burned down. I used the little playhouse to make the big one larger, as we are living in it. The Towns People have stolen away the Law Office for their own homes and they have stolen away the cottages and made them into larger houses for themselves. They have taken all of the furniture that you bought for our Mamma. I have nothing but what our sister has managed to safeguard, and that isn't much. Today we shall sing your song, but we do not sing about what we shall be taking over from you, I sing about what I have failed to protect, and what I have lost and know that I am not man enough to regain. I am sorry father, I am so unworthy of your great dreams for me.".

The letter that boy wrote still sat in that care taker's papers when I went to research so many years ago. I cherish the words of the boy. I sorrow for him. Custer sorrowed for him. When he read the grief of the boy's raw pain that he had felt that he'd failed his father by not being able to defend his home from the greedy neighbors who'd stolen it all away, and then they had not come to help the children to sing their father home. If the neighbors had been with the two children, (The boy was only about 16 or 17 at most.) Katie was between 9 and 12 years old. If they'd been joined by their neighbors, they might have been protected, or at the very least, the soldier who had heard the tune of "Dixie" might have listened to the children's pleas and heard them out when they tried to explain that they were not singing a treason song, but a requiem to their dead father. Maybe, the towns people would have been able to dissuade him from hanging a teenaged boy who had lost everything his father had left him and his sister. But that is precisely the reason the towns people were not there. They were ashamed of what they had done to those children and were still doing to them. For they were still taking things from the property.

When Katie ran the 2 tenths of a mile to the town for aid, no one came to cut her brother down. They all turned away from that poor little girl. When she threw herself prostrate upon the ground to weep for her brother till she could weep no more and she fell asleep no towns people came to see if she was alright. Later that night, when the cruel officer who had ordered her brother hanged had drunk himself into a stupor and fell unconscious and snoring upon the ground about 15 feet from where Katie lay hidden in the bushes, there was no one to check on that little girl.

Katie noticed that the officer's money was sticking out of his coat in such a way that every once in a while, other soldiers would sneak up on him and steal out a couple of green backs. So, Little Katie thought, "I'll steal my guitar back too"", but, stealing was a crime. and she knew that she would be made to pay for it, so, she put her gold cross and chain into his pocket so she could retrieve it the next day, and took his money for safe keeping and she went to see Custer himself the next day, to give Custer the money back so he could get her gold cross and chain back for her. She knew Mr. Custer would give her a fair hearing. He was a general. He had to be better than this person.

When Custer heard her story - No wonder he had the officer put in chains and sent to Washington City for discipline, He said he didn't trust himself to discipline the man himself, nor any of his men. Could you? They lived in a time of honor. Still, it was clear that there were a few people who had NO honor. We live in a time where there is honor, but there is not as much of is as there was in Custer's day.

The people who were so uncaring in the town where little Katie lived had the grace to be sad when that child died. But no one was so touched by her as General Custer. The Towns People said That when Custer discovered that she was gone from the realm of the living, He screamed the word "No!", so loudly and so heart wrenchingly, they could all hear him two tenths of a mile away. That is why he put up the little playhouse tomb for his little friend, "The daughter of his heart" and his and his men's very own "Angel Un aware".
Yes it got me thinking, how sad it truly was that they didnt have a child between them, that would have been such a comfort to libbie, even if it wasnt there own it still would have been apart of her Autie . I wonder if they had children if it would have changed how Custer lead his life after the war. would have a child changed the course he was on? you have to stop and think what Libbie meant to him,having a child might have slowed him down changed the way he thought, he loved family. He would have been a great father. I couldnt picture him still in the army or at least not taking the chances if things were different. I think that if he had a child, it might have been the only thing in life that would have saved his life.Its almost as tho his fate was sealed long before so a child could never enter the picture. I guess in the grand scheme of things he played his part in history.
 
Hello Mr. Custer's Luck. I really feel badly that he didn't get to have children too. He would have been a good papa. I have been saying for a long time that it's a shame that only the victors get to write the history books, because, sometimes they are so hung up on how strong and brave they all are, they paint their heroes so strong they end up sounding like such big bruisers they have hair growing on their teeth! The Southerners have stories about the Union Generals that show that the Union Generals had Very big soft hearts and very honorable souls as well.

General Grant is mentioned in my ancestor's letters as well, he once came upon two wounded confederate drummer boys who were no older than 10 years old. They were so little they were on the same stretcher. It was near Christmas and Gen'l Grant saw that they were not being brought into the hospital. He told the steward to bring them in. The Steward told him they didn't have room for their own men in there. So Gen'l Grant Picked them up in his own arms and hauled them in. It turned out the boys were friends who were brought up together. One of them had recently lost his mother. And a few days later the other mother arrived to find her son.

The boys both had head injuries. They both had bright curly red hair and with the bandages on their curly heads all you could see of them was the tip of their chins and the top of their heads. Both were unconscious when the young mother arrived at the hospital. Gen'l Grant happened to be there when the young mother walked into the room on the first floor where she thought her son was. She sang an old hymn to her boy. General Grant felt sorry for the other little fellow. So he went up the stairs and he sang to the other boy, the same hymn that the mother sang to her son. This happened for 3 or four days. Then, The mother lost her son. General Grant promised that he would help the young mother in every way that he could. He asked her if she would please sing to the other little boy,

The young mother agreed, but when she went up the stairs there was a bench outside of the room where the boy was. and she sat upon the bench and refused to go into the room. She told General Grant, "I just lost my boy, Please, don't ask me to go and sing to another dying child. I cannot.". So, General Grant, once again, trudged into the ward and he went into the boy's room. They had just removed the boy's bandages that morning. He held the little fellow and he sang to him.

What General Grant did not know was that the little boy and his own mother had written their own lyrics to the old hymn and when General Grant finished singing the song that day, the little boy held fast to General Grants hand, then he opened his cobalt blue eyes very wide indeed, He looked at the cross on the wall and then he closed his eyes and he began to sing the words to the old hymn that he and his mother had added to it.

My eyes are closed and I'm praying Lord
And I know you are devine
And I know she is your sparrow Lord
But I thought that she was mine.

And I will do and say or be
Any tning you ask of me
If I open my eyes and I may see
That you've brought her safely here to me
Because I'm your Sparrow too.

General Grant told his wife that the little boy began to shake so at that point because, the woman came into the room in a rush, and tried to pry the boy from his arms, and he asked if the boy was too heavy for her.

Later, the little confederate told his friend, General Grant, "I had been closing my eyes all morning, ever since they pulled the bandages off me. And every time I would sing that song in my head, but when I opened my eyes, I would see a doctor or a sister, or a nurse lady or one of the soldiers was getting better and trying to take care of me, an' once I saw you. But when I sang it for real. It was different. I could smell Lilacs and Violets. An' I could Feel My Momma's hands on me. Then she said she was never letting me go no where again. I'm happy now. ", he said, and General Grant told his wife that the little Confederate really was happy.

Mrs. Grant, and some of the family had been in town to spend Christmas with the Gen'l. and they invited the child and his mother to spend the holiday with them. They did, General Grant offered to send the little fellow to school with his own boys, but the boy wanted to take care of his mamma. One day he was going to grow up and be a doctor. He said. General Grant said her would write him a fine recommendation. In fact, he wrote it on the spot.

"
 
Hello Mr. Custer's Luck. I really feel badly that he didn't get to have children too. He would have been a good papa. I have been saying for a long time that it's a shame that only the victors get to write the history books, because, sometimes they are so hung up on how strong and brave they all are, they paint their heroes so strong they end up sounding like such big bruisers they have hair growing on their teeth! The Southerners have stories about the Union Generals that show that the Union Generals had Very big soft hearts and very honorable souls as well.

General Grant is mentioned in my ancestor's letters as well, he once came upon two wounded confederate drummer boys who were no older than 10 years old. They were so little they were on the same stretcher. It was near Christmas and Gen'l Grant saw that they were not being brought into the hospital. He told the steward to bring them in. The Steward told him they didn't have room for their own men in there. So Gen'l Grant Picked them up in his own arms and hauled them in. It turned out the boys were friends who were brought up together. One of them had recently lost his mother. And a few days later the other mother arrived to find her son.

The boys both had head injuries. They both had bright curly red hair and with the bandages on their curly heads all you could see of them was the tip of their chins and the top of their heads. Both were unconscious when the young mother arrived at the hospital. Gen'l Grant happened to be there when the young mother walked into the room on the first floor where she thought her son was. She sang an old hymn to her boy. General Grant felt sorry for the other little fellow. So he went up the stairs and he sang to the other boy, the same hymn that the mother sang to her son. This happened for 3 or four days. Then, The mother lost her son. General Grant promised that he would help the young mother in every way that he could. He asked her if she would please sing to the other little boy,

The young mother agreed, but when she went up the stairs there was a bench outside of the room where the boy was. and she sat upon the bench and refused to go into the room. She told General Grant, "I just lost my boy, Please, don't ask me to go and sing to another dying child. I cannot.". So, General Grant, once again, trudged into the ward and he went into the boy's room. They had just removed the boy's bandages that morning. He held the little fellow and he sang to him.

What General Grant did not know was that the little boy and his own mother had written their own lyrics to the old hymn and when General Grant finished singing the song that day, the little boy held fast to General Grants hand, then he opened his cobalt blue eyes very wide indeed, He looked at the cross on the wall and then he closed his eyes and he began to sing the words to the old hymn that he and his mother had added to it.

My eyes are closed and I'm praying Lord
And I know you are devine
And I know she is your sparrow Lord
But I thought that she was mine.

And I will do and say or be
Any tning you ask of me
If I open my eyes and I may see
That you've brought her safely here to me
Because I'm your Sparrow too.

General Grant told his wife that the little boy began to shake so at that point because, the woman came into the room in a rush, and tried to pry the boy from his arms, and he asked if the boy was too heavy for her.

Later, the little confederate told his friend, General Grant, "I had been closing my eyes all morning, ever since they pulled the bandages off me. And every time I would sing that song in my head, but when I opened my eyes, I would see a doctor or a sister, or a nurse lady or one of the soldiers was getting better and trying to take care of me, an' once I saw you. But when I sang it for real. It was different. I could smell Lilacs and Violets. An' I could Feel My Momma's hands on me. Then she said she was never letting me go no where again. I'm happy now. ", he said, and General Grant told his wife that the little Confederate really was happy.

Mrs. Grant, and some of the family had been in town to spend Christmas with the Gen'l. and they invited the child and his mother to spend the holiday with them. They did, General Grant offered to send the little fellow to school with his own boys, but the boy wanted to take care of his mamma. One day he was going to grow up and be a doctor. He said. General Grant said her would write him a fine recommendation. In fact, he wrote it on the spot.

"
yes what you said is true, when you see only one side, the humane part is lost till they just become who you see in a painting or a photo. What a wonderful story Beccas cousin!. it surely shows a kinder side of the man. I think its important not to forget that under the uniform was a person before the war, a dad, brother, uncle, some ones grand pa, and they were all different people before the war interrupted, I guess we expect or demand that our leaders are hard, brave,tough and maybe not show any kindness because that might be a weakness.but wouldn't it be nice to see a photo of them all with just a smile on there face and get to see that part of them!!!
 
Doctor James Graham wrote a book about Disinfectants in 1857. It was published in Ohio. That wasn't even one of the big publishing houses like Blanchard and Lea. There were plenty of big books about Disinfectants by them. Doctor Watson who wrote many of the major textbooks for the medical schools has entire chapters dedicated to disinfection, and his books are published by Blanchard and Lea. Ericksen's Surgical TextBooks also talk about the need for strict cleanliness in surgery both before operating and stringent cleanliness after surgical procedures. Dr. Eriiksen stresses that strict cleanliness Must be observed to avoid inflammation.

In Doctor Graham's book "The Principles and Practice of Disinfection" He goes on to show that the practices of disinfecting wounds, as well as fumigating homes where the sick have been has been with humanity since times of antiquity. Heroditus mentions using Sulphur to fumigate a house by burning it. Pliny also mentions the use of Sulphur for fumigation , Pliny is a bit more sophisticated, his recipe is to burn sullphur and bitomen together to fumigate a house where severe illness had been. Homer mentions that Ulysses has to use oils and other fragrant incenses to rid a building of the scent of sickness, but only certain minerals can rid a pestilence.

In Napoleanic times, Chlorine is used to wash and boil the clothing and the bedding of the sick. Chloride of Lime is used to mop the floors and to hang around the beds of the contagion patients. Slaked Lime is used to fumigate the wards.
The use of Alcohol is also employed in boiling bedding, clothing and washing the floors where contagions are concerned.

If these things are mentioned in the Napoleanic Period, and in an 1857 book - they were certainly known and used in the American Civil War.

Also, There were Antiseptics and Disinfectants in the Supply Tables for the Hospital Stores for the US Army. The Army knew about the maloderous smells of gangrene, They white washed the walls of the gangrene tents often. (some say at least twice a week) Also, there were ground cloths that were painted with white enamel paint on the ground of every hospital tent in the Union Army. This was to render them waterproof. It kept down the insect population, and it made the floors of the hospital easier to keep clean you could then mop and bleach them. and use slaked lime to fumigate them.

The Medical Dictionary of the period was Dunglison's The Doctors of the day believed that contagions were spread by Animalcules, diminutive animals that could only be seen with a microscope were passing diseases that were contagions from one patient on to another by galloping unseen from bed to bed. That isn't exactly far from the truth, is it? By the way, Dunglison's Medical Dictionary, was edited by Doctor Robley Dunglison, who was Thomas Jefferson's Doctor. and Today's Medical School Students use the SAME dictionary, only, Steadman's is the name of it, because, that is the name of the new publisher. But hey, We are still basically they same, so it's the same dictionary, still good old Dunglison's, just edited by Steadman now, with the new stuff added.

Yes, I'm familiar with all that. I'm not disagreeing with any of it. There's an original copy of Dunglison's dictionary about 12 feet from where I'm sitting. Notice all the things you mentioned are exactly what I've been saying: disinfecting by washing the walls, removing odor, cleaning bedding, etc.

The evidence needed is a period reference to a surgeon disinfecting his instruments during the Civil War.

One can't just assume that if they washed the walls, they must have washed the instruments too, especially since Lister is credited with changing things by recommending it post-war. If surgeons had already been doing it regularly, his discovery and recommendation wouldn't have been noteworthy. Instruments didn't seem like they would trap odors or be a hiding place for animalcules, even if animalcules did cause disease. From period doctors' point of view, it just didn't seem logical.

If you have a primary source that shows instruments being disinfected during the Civil War, please post it. It's not impossible that some lone Civil War surgeon was doing it, but first we need evidence that someone was.
 
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