Civil War Articles by Julian WilliamsSawbones! The Civil War Surgeon Was Your Last Chance!
This article was compiled by Julian Williams.
The Civil War is a study in suffering and misery. For every man killed by a bullet, two died of some sort of disease or sickness. This estimate, used many times by those who reported such things, probably was close. It was also reported that the State of Mississippi, in 1866, the year after the War, allocated over 20 percent of the state budget for artificial limbs and other help for its disabled and maimed veterans.
Men like Dr. H.J. Smith, who later moved to Jacksonville, Georgia, because he liked visiting there, was one of those soldiers who had a sometimes thankless but necessary job - he was a military surgeon. Dr. Henry J. first started out with the Georgia 20th, Company H, a unit made up of Telfair and Coffee County soldiers and probably some from other places as well. After a stint with them he served other units. Doctors got sick too. One of the documents I was looking at had him on sick furlough with dyspepsia. Dysentery was awful also. They called it the "double quick step." Even General Lee was not exempt from its disastrous effects.
The art and science of warfare did not make it any easier for the doctors. I read where the commanders would often instruct their men to shoot the enemy to wound him, not to kill him. The reason for this was that if you wounded your foe, possibly one or maybe two of his buddies would have to help him off the field of battle. Then, a surgeon would have to go to work on him. In this way, you would be occupying the services of about two or three or more people. If you killed him, then the other men could fight on. So, they shot to wound so that more men would have to leave the firing field.
Another thing that kept surgeons busy was the fact that some men got wounded on purpose. If they got wounded, they could receive a furlough. One officer caught a soldier employing this tactic. Protected behind a tree, the man would dangle an arm out in the open and then a leg. The officer asked him what he was doing. The man replied that he was "feeling for a furlough." To use such an extreme method of relieving oneself of combat duty tells us that the going must have been rough!
I also read where the South captured about 205,000 Union soldiers during the War. No telling how many Southerners the Union captured. A great percentage of these men were undoubtedly not in the greatest physical condition. Some were wounded and some sick. Some were probably totally exhausted - couldn't keep up with their unit - so they were captured. These soldiers, even though enemies, also required medical attention. While they did not receive adequate care from their adversaries at times, on both sides, usually physicians were very dedicated and compassionate human beings who wanted to alleviate suffering whether in the form of Blue or Gray.
Bob Swain, relative of the old settler, Thomas Swain, who helped General John Coffee build the road from Jacksonville, Georgia, to Tallahassee, Florida, told me about another one of his relatives - which illustrates the point of universal compassion quite well. Dr. Enos Swain was a Union military physician. But he had kin on both sides of the conflict. And he probably would have felt the same had he not. Anyway, he was very diligent and dedicated about treating the wounded of both North and South.
Many physicians had this good attitude about helping suffering humanity - friend or foe. One account of a Southern soldier related that he took a ball through the front of his body and it came out his back. He was found alive, but barely, on the battlefield by Union soldiers and taken to their hospital. The doctors told him it looked like he would probably die before they could do too much for him. He told them that where he came from he was taught that where there was hope there was life. This motivated the Union doctors to exert extra efforts to try to save the life of this brave Rebel soldier. He recovered and made it back home. From that day forward, he would make no uncomplimentary remarks about Yankees. The Yankees had saved his life.
One interesting thing I came across was something that the Southern doctors found out fairly early in the War that gave them an advantage over the Union doctors. It was noted that in time, especially if it did not receive immediate attention, a wound would attract flies. These flies would lay eggs in the wound and the result was maggots wiggling around in the wound. At first, this alarmed everyone terribly but as they observed they noticed that the maggots were eating away all the dead and infected flesh and pus and leaving the good flesh intact. This actually led to the doctors and their assistants applying maggots to do a job which they could not do as well! To my surprise, I found out that this technique is still being applied in modern medicine. I suppose it is now called maggot therapy or some such sophisticated name, but there's only so much sophistication out there for maggots. Anyway, if it works, don't kick it. I am told the maggots are counted before they are put in the wound (usually a deep inaccessible one) and that after the job is done, then the same number must be extracted. Some Civil War soldiers said it wasn't so bad but they never did get used to those little creatures wriggling around in there!
Civil War doctors also practiced triage. When men were brought in wounded, the doctors would group them into categories of need. If a man was beyond help, the doctors would start to work on one that at least had a fair chance of making it! This seems cruel but in this way, they could at least possibly save one, instead of losing two!
Some authors say that nearly all operations took place, on both sides, with adequate anesthesia. This is hard to believe, in view of the fact that clothing, food, and ammunition were often in short supply, or no supply, much more so medicine, it would seem. Too many are the horror stories of men undergoing surgery with a bullet between their teeth, a slug of alcohol drunk, or being held on the table by several men while the doctor amputated the limb. And many were the limbs amputated. It is estimated that 75 percent of the wounds were to the extremities. The minie ball was bad about doing a lot of damage to tissue and bone. There was no alternative to surgery in many cases. One source said that the average amputation took about seven minutes. A quick slice with the surgeon's knife, quick sawing through the bone with a bonesaw, and the work was done. By the way, that is where the nickname for the surgeon originated - he used a bonesaw, so he was called a "sawbones."
After they took off the leg of Union General Daniel Sickles, he donated it to a museum and visited his pickled leg every chance he got.
And, speaking of legs, W.E. Swinney ran off to the Civil War when he was but sixteen years old. He didn't lose his leg there, but he later lost one. He was rescuing an old lady from the third story of a hotel when he fell and hurt his knee. His leg had to be amputated. Evidently all this was not wasted because, it is said Dr. Swinney became a very able surgeon until rheumatism took the gift from those able hands. He moved to Jacksonville, Georgia, to be around the turpentine industry. One of his daughters wrote that he even delivered the kittens for the family cat. Maybe after all the suffering he saw in the Civil War, he didn't even want the cat to suffer!
Dr. A.J. Jones, another Jacksonville physician whose father was in the Civil War, said that if the man had to have the second baby, the population would end at that point! He had compassion too.
