The Journal Of A Civil War Surgeon

Author : Jonah Franklin Dyer
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
Page : 364 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2003-01-01
Category : History
ISBN : 0803266375

Get Book

The Journal of a Civil War Surgeon by Jonah Franklin Dyer Pdf

J. Franklin Dyer?s journal offers a rare perspective on three years of the Civil War as seen through the eyes of a surgeon at the front. The journal, taken from letters written to his wife, Maria, describes in lengthy and colorful detail the daily life of a doctor who began as a regimental surgeon in the Nineteenth Massachusetts Volunteers and was promoted to acting medical director of the Second Corps, Army of the Potomac. ø This firsthand account traces Dyer?s attempts to manage his Gloucester household even as the Second Corps fought on the Peninsula, at Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and from the Wilderness to Petersburg. Over time his letters to his wife become fraught with the tension of a man losing his early martial ardor as he witnesses the ghastly procession of suffering and death. ø Both a talented surgeon and a careful administrator, Dyer nevertheless declined opportunities to work at hospitals in the rear in order to stay near his old regiment and the fighting. He confronted the aftermath of battle?thousands of wounded and dying men?with a small staff and simple instruments. He and his fellow surgeons saved lives as best they could?often at the cost of amputated limbs?then dropped to the ground from exhaustion and slept in blood-drenched uniforms until the cries of the wounded woke them and induced them back to work. Dyer also provides a glimpse of the most devastating opponent the armies faced: disease. He and his medical colleagues fought cholera, typhus, dysentery, measles, and, despite official denials in Washington , a scurvy outbreak that weakened Federal units during the Peninsula campaign.

Author : Shauna Devine,Guy R. Hasegawa,James M. Edmonson,Barbra Mann Wall,Margaret Humphreys,Randall M. Miller
Publisher : Indiana University Press
Page : 356 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2019-05-01
Category : Medical
ISBN : 9780253040107

Get Book

Civil War Medicine by Shauna Devine,Guy R. Hasegawa,James M. Edmonson,Barbra Mann Wall,Margaret Humphreys,Randall M. Miller Pdf

“An incredible resource for anyone interested in the human experience of the Civil War―as recorded by a medical professional tasked with saving lives.”—David Price, Executive Director of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine In this never before published diary, twenty-nine-year-old surgeon James Fulton transports readers into the harsh and deadly conditions of the Civil War as he struggles to save the lives of the patients under his care. Fulton joined a Union army volunteer regiment in 1862, only a year into the Civil War, and immediately began chronicling his experiences in a pocket diary. Despite his capture by the Confederate Army at Gettysburg and the confiscation of his medical tools, Fulton was able to keep his diary with him at all times. He provides a detailed account of the next two years, including his experiences treating the wounded and diseased during some of the most critical campaigns of the war, and his relationships with soldiers, their commanders, civilians, other health-care workers, and the opposing Confederate army. The diary also includes his notes on recipes for medical ailments from sore throats to syphilis. In addition to Fulton’s diary, editor Robert D. Hicks and experts in Civil War medicine provide context and additional information on the practice and development of medicine during the Civil War, including the technology and methods available at the time; the organization of military medicine; doctor-patient interactions; and the role of women as caregivers and relief workers. Civil War Medicine: A Surgeon’s Diary provides a compelling new account of the lives of soldiers during the Civil War and a doctor’s experience of one of the worst health crises ever faced by the United States.

Author : Daniel M. Holt
Publisher : Kent State University Press
Page : 326 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 1991-05-31
Category : History
ISBN : 0873385381

Get Book

A Surgeon's Civil War by Daniel M. Holt Pdf

Daniel M. Holt, a successful country doctor in the upstate village of Newport, New York, accepted the position of assistant surgeon in the 121st New York Volunteer Army in August 1862. At age 42 when he was commissioned, he was the oldest member of the staff. But his experience served him well, as his regiment participated in nearly all the major campaigns in the eastern theater of the war--Crampton's Gap before Antietam, Fredericksburg, Salem Church, the Mine Run campaign, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, the 1864 Shenandoah Valley campaign, and Appomattox. In A Surgeon's Civil War, the educated and articulate Holt describes camp life, army politics, and the medical difficulties that he and his colleagues experienced. His reminiscences and letters provide an insider's look at medicine as practiced on the battlefield and offer occasional glimpses of the efficacy of Surgeon General William A. Hammond's reforms as they affected Holt's regiment. He also comments on other subjects, including slavery and national events. Holt served until October 17, 1864 when ill health forced him to resign.

Author : Robert D. Hicks
Publisher : Indiana University Press
Page : 410 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2019-05-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9780253040084

Get Book

Civil War Medicine by Robert D. Hicks Pdf

In this never before published diary, 29-year-old surgeon James Fulton transports readers into the harsh and deadly conditions of the Civil War as he struggles to save the lives of the patients under his care. Fulton joined a Union army volunteer regiment in 1862, only a year into the Civil War, and immediately began chronicling his experiences in a pocket diary. Despite his capture by the Confederate Army at Gettysburg and the confiscation of his medical tools, Fulton was able to keep his diary with him at all times. He provides a detailed account of the next two years, including his experiences treating the wounded and diseased during some of the most critical campaigns of the Civil War and his relationships with soldiers, their commanders, civilians, other health-care workers, and the opposing Confederate army. The diary also includes his notes on recipes for medical ailments from sore throats to syphilis. In addition to Fulton's diary, editor Robert D. Hicks and experts in Civil War medicine provide context and additional information on the practice and development of medicine during the Civil War, including the technology and methods available at the time, the organization of military medicine, doctor-patient interactions, and the role of women as caregivers and relief workers. Civil War Medicine: A Surgeon's Diary provides a compelling new account of the lives of soldiers during the Civil War and a doctor's experience of one of the worst health crises ever faced by the United States.

Author : C. Marion Dodson
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 172 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2002
Category : Physicians' assistants
ISBN : WISC:89077905347

Get Book

Yellow Flag by C. Marion Dodson Pdf

Author : Stewart J. Petrie
Publisher : Pentland Press (NC)
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 1998
Category : Medicine, Military
ISBN : UCLA:L0087527362

Get Book

Letters and Journals of a Civil War Surgeon by Stewart J. Petrie Pdf

Author : William Marcellus McPheeters
Publisher : University of Arkansas Press
Page : 456 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2000-07-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781557287953

Get Book

I Acted from Principle by William Marcellus McPheeters Pdf

At the start of the Civil War, Dr. William McPheeters was a distinguished physician in St. Louis, conducting unprecedented public-health research, forging new medical standards, and organizing the state's first professional associations. But Missouri was a volatile border state. Under martial law, Union authorities kept close watch on known Confederate sympathizers. McPheeters was followed, arrested, threatened, and finally, in 1862, given an ultimatum: sign an oath of allegiance to the Union or go to federal prison. McPheeters "acted from principle" instead, fleeing by night to Confederate territory. He served as a surgeon under Gen. Sterling Price and his Missouri forces west of the Mississippi River, treating soldiers' diseases, malnutrition, and terrible battle wounds. From almost the moment of his departure, the doctor kept a diary. It was a pocket-size notebook which he made by folding sheets of pale blue writing paper in half and in which he wrote in miniature with his steel pen. It is the first known daily account by a Confederate medical officer in the Trans-Mississippi Department. It also tells his wife's story, which included harassment by Federal military officials, imprisonment in St. Louis, and banishment from Missouri with the couple's two small children. The journal appears here in its complete and original form, exactly as the doctor first wrote it, with the addition of the editors' full annotation and vivid introductions to each section.

Author : Thomas Heard Robertson, Jr.
Publisher : Savas Beatie
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 2015-05-22
Category : History
ISBN : 9781611212617

Get Book

Resisting Sherman by Thomas Heard Robertson, Jr. Pdf

Despite its fascinating cast of characters, host of combats large and small, and its impact on the course of the Civil War, surprisingly little ink has been spilled on the conflictÕs final months in the Carolinas. Resisting Sherman: A Confederate SurgeonÕs Journal and the Civil War in the Carolinas, 1865, by Francis Marion Robertson (edited by Thomas H. Robertson, Jr.) fills in many of the gaps and adds tremendously to our knowledge of this region and those troubled final days of the Confederacy. Surgeon Francis Robertson fled Charleston with the Confederate garrison in 1865 in an effort to stay ahead of General ShermanÕs Federal army as it marched north from Savannah. The Southern high command was attempting to reinforce General Joseph E. JohnstonÕs force in North Carolina for a last-ditch effort to defeat Sherman and perhaps join with General Lee in Virginia, or at least gain better terms for surrender. Dr. Robertson, a West Pointer, physician, professor, politician, patrician, and Presbyterian with five sons in the Confederate army, kept a daily journal for the final three months of the Civil War while traveling more than 900 miles through four states. His account looks critically at the decisions of generals from a middle ranking officerÕs viewpoint, describes army movements from a ground level perspective, and places the military campaign within the everyday events of average citizens suffering under the boot of war. Editor and descendant Thomas Robertson followed in his ancestorÕs footsteps, conducting exhaustive research to identify the people, route, and places mentioned in the journal. Sidebars on a wide variety of related issues include coverage of politics and the Battle of Averasboro, where one of the surgeonÕs sons was shot. An extensive introduction covers the military situation in and around Charleston that led to the evacuation described so vividly by Surgeon Robertson, and an epilogue summarizes what happened to the diary characters after the war.

Author : Horace Herndon Cunningham
Publisher : Pickle Partners Publishing
Page : 294 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2015-11-06
Category : History
ISBN : 9781786251213

Get Book

Doctors In Gray: The Confederate Medical Service by Horace Herndon Cunningham Pdf

“H. H. Cunningham’s Doctors in Gray, first published more than thirty years ago, remains the definitive work on the medical history of the Confederate army. Drawing on a prodigious array of sources, Cunningham paints as complete a picture as possible of the daunting task facing those charged with caring for the war’s wounded and sick. Of the estimated 600,000 Confederate troops, Cunningham claims the 200,000 died either from battle wounds of from illness—the majority, surprisingly, from illness. Despite these grim statistics, Confederate medical personnel frequently performed heroically under the most primitive of circumstances and made imaginative use of limited resources. Cunningham provides detailed information on the administration of the Confederate Medical Department, the establishment and organization of Confederate hospitals, the experiences of medical officers in the field, the manufacture and procurement of supplies, the causes and treatment of diseases, and the beginning of modern surgical practices.” - Print ed.

Author : William Mervale Smith
Publisher : Stackpole Books
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 53,5 Mb
Release : 2001
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 081171537X

Get Book

Swamp Doctor by William Mervale Smith Pdf

William Mervale Smith, surgeon of the 85th New York Volunteer Infantry, faithfully kept a diary of his Civil War experiences. Smith's introspective musings cover matters both professional and personal, from the horror of battle and the almost equally terrible politics of war to his deepest longings and questions about love and spirituality. While some diarists wrote self-consciously, anticipating eventual publication of their words, Smith's entries, as author Thomas Lowry explains, "are of such a personal and self-revelatory nature that we can reasonably conclude that he wrote to himself alone, as a sort of spiritual exercise of self-communication."

Author : Thomas Power Lowry,Terry Reimer
Publisher : CreateSpace
Page : 144 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 2011-01-08
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1453810854

Get Book

Bad Doctors by Thomas Power Lowry,Terry Reimer Pdf

One-hundred fifty years after the Civil War, there are still untold stories. Over 11,000 surgeons served in the Union army; 10,400 were well behaved. The other 600 were in trouble for embezzlement, insubordination, rape, AWOL, desertion, surliness, stealing food, and a host of other misdeeds. One man was deemed, "Drunk, but not too drunk to operate." Another was hopping into the beds of women in the VD hospital. Yet another forged his own performance reports, reporting his own excellent character. A statistical study compares their incidence of malpractice with one of today's mid-West states.These remarkable stories are accompanied by full citations and are indexed by regiment. An eye-opener and a much-needed reference work.

Author : Scott McGaugh
Publisher : Skyhorse Publishing Inc.
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2013-07
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781611458398

Get Book

Surgeon in Blue by Scott McGaugh Pdf

Recounts the life of the Civil War surgeon and how he made battlefield survival possible by creating the first organized ambulance corps and a more effective field hospital system.

Author : Shauna Devine
Publisher : UNC Press Books
Page : 386 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2014
Category : History
ISBN : 9781469611556

Get Book

Learning from the Wounded by Shauna Devine Pdf

Learning from the Wounded: The Civil War and the Rise of American Medical Science

Author : Dennis A. Rasbach
Publisher :
Page : 144 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2018-04-26
Category : History
ISBN : 9781940669892

Get Book

I Am Perhaps Dying by Dennis A. Rasbach Pdf

Invalid teenager Leroy Wiley Gresham left a seven-volume diary spanning the years of secession and the Civil War (1860-1865). He was just 12 when he began and he died at 17, just weeks after the war ended. His remarkable account, recently published as The War Outside My Window: The Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham, 1860-1865, edited by Janet E. Croon (2018), spans the gamut of life events that were of interest to a precocious and well-educated Southern teenager—including military, political, religious, social, and literary matters of the day. This alone ranks it as an important contribution to our understanding of life and times in the Old South. But it is much more than that. Chronic disease and suffering stalk the young writer, who is never told he is dying until just before his death. Dr. Rasbach, a graduate of Johns Hopkins medical school and a practicing general surgeon with more than three decades of experience, was tasked with solving the mystery of LeRoy’s disease. Like a detective, Dr. Rasbach peels back the layers of mystery by carefully examining the medical-related entries. What were LeRoy’s symptoms? What medicines did doctors prescribe for him? What course did the disease take, month after month, year after year? The author ably explores these and other issues in I Am Perhaps Dying to conclude that the agent responsible for LeRoy’s suffering and demise turns out to be Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a tiny but lethal adversary of humanity since the beginning of recorded time. In the second half of the nineteenth century, tuberculosis was the deadliest disease in the world, accounting for one-third of all deaths. Even today, a quarter of the world’s population is infected with TB, and the disease remains one of the top ten causes of death, claiming 1.7 million lives annually, mostly in poor and underdeveloped countries. While the young man was detailing the decline and fall of the Old South, he was also chronicling his own horrific demise from spinal TB. These five years of detailed entries make LeRoy’s diary an exceedingly rare (and perhaps unique) account from a nineteenth century TB patient. LeRoy’s diary offers an inside look at a fateful journey that robbed an energetic and likeable young man of his youth and life. I Am Perhaps Dying adds considerably to the medical literature by increasing our understanding of how tuberculosis attacked a young body over time, how it was treated in the middle nineteenth century, and the effectiveness of those treatments.

Author : Paul B. Kerr MD
Publisher : AuthorHouse
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 43,5 Mb
Release : 2012-03
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781468559804

Get Book

Civil War Surgeon - Biography of James Langstaff Dunn, MD by Paul B. Kerr MD Pdf

This book is a Biography of James Langstaff Dunn, MD, Civil War Surgeon and unwavering Patriot, from Medical Student 1846 to War End 1865. A modern doctor, Paul B Kerr, MD, obtained 140 letters Dunn wrote to his dear wife, Temperance, and children, from his College and War years. Dr Kerr interprets the letters as relates to surgery, diseases, tent life, prisons, hospitals and logistics in the light of life and medicine today, and his own experiences in Army Medicine in WW II and Korea. Dr Kerr also discusses the knowledge of anesthesia in the 1800s, and how it evolved during 40 years of his own practice of anesthesia. Dunn was the Surgeon of the 109th PA Volunteers of Infantry for three years, a Batallion that carried many central assignments and battles. Fighting for 1 1/2 years with the Army of the Potomac, his unit did a second 1 1/2 years with the Army of the Tennessee. Dunn describes first-hand the Battles for Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, Chattanooga, Atlanta and the occupancy of Savannah. You won't forget his exhausting personal help for women and babies in the fiery destruction of Columbia, South Carolina. Nor will his description of first entry into Atlanta be forgotten. Dunn personally names Clara Barton "The Angel of the Battlefield." He witnesses the amazing assault on Lookout Mountain, visits relatives in Cincinnati and Nashville. In Washington, he observes President Lincoln and the huge tent city with thousands of marching men there. We have from him a dateline Washington, DC on the very day Lincoln was shot. We meet his boss and friend, General John Geary, who from Mayor of San Francisco and Governor of Kansas, becomes his Commandant, and, after the War, Governor of Pennsylvania. We learn first hand about drunkenness, "Hospital Gangrene;" and Dunn's encounters with slaves, the aristocracy of Virginia and the primitive whites of the Tennessee Mountains. Throughout, Dr Dunn keeps his morals, his devotion to the Union and his disgust with pacifists at home in Pennsylvania and in Congress. He discusses the Conscription Laws and means of substitution. His letters are full of Military Information that in other wars were subject to censorship. His 140 letters are as a "War Correspondent."