Empty sleeves: amputation in the Civil War South

In: Uncivil wars

Abstract

"This will be the first book about the Civil War to examine the meaning of amputation, and of amputees, in the U.S. South. Brian Craig Miller provides medical history of the procedure, looks at men who rejected amputation, and examines how Southern men and women adjusted their ideas about honor, masculinity, and love in response to the presence of large numbers of amputees during and after the war. While some historians have explored the lives of the wounded, disabled and amputated soldiers throughout the major military conflicts of the twentieth century, few monographs have returned to a time when medical care remained primitive at best in American history: the Civil War. While one recent article explored what amputation may have meant to Union soldiers returning from battle, the same has yet to be done for the losing side in the military conflict. The destruction of slavery, the perseverance of the Union and the triumph of liberty, freedom and equality ensured that the sacrifices of Northern men would be recognized, memorialized and cherished for generations beyond the battlefield. However, can the same be said for Southern amputated men, who returned from the war scarred, disillusioned and defeated? In his travels in the South over the past five years, Miller has combed through archives, producing a wealth of surgical and medical manuals, hospital records, surgeons reports, diary, letter and journal entries pertaining to amputation, legislative records, pension files and applications, newspaper reports and numerous anecdotes about what it means to lose a limb. These sources allow Miller to combine political, medical, military, social, cultural and gender history into a much-needed disability study of the Confederacy"--Provided by publisher