Letter of the Day: September 12

Camp Letterman Hospital
Gettysburgh (sic) Pa, Sept. 12th 1863

Sir

Yours of the 11th is just received. As a general rule Medical Descriptive Lists have not been forwarded with patients sent to Baltimore and Philadelphia because, except those transferred by special order, nearly all those recently sent have been well or so nearly well that their Surgical histories could be completed. When cases terminate the histories are classified and compiled in a book ruled like the enclosed form. I was intending to forward the lists to you as soon as this was done; but you will save yourself a great deal of labor if you will wait until the compilation is done. You have no idea how difficult it has been to get even such poor histories as those I send to day. I have approved Dr. McArthur to attend to the compilation and have directed him to send the lists back unless they were tolerably satisfactory, in many cases this has been done several times before any thing of the least use could be obtained. Many of the Medical officers who have been relieved have left no records behind or records so imperfect as to be useless.

At the time your keg of whiskey was received there was no whiskey at the dispensary to I exchanged it for alcohol. We are now saving a considerable quantity of postmortem specimens, mostly injured bones and joins. Some cheap spirits for their preservation would be acceptable.

Except in very rare instances no capital operations are now performed.

It will be impossible for me to make a report and tabular statement of all the gunshot wounds for the month of July. On the 27th of May Dr. Letterman ordered that the monthly reports of the different corps hospitals should be made through the Medical Directors of the Corps to him. I suppose the reports for July were forwarded accordingly. At that time I had not sufficient clerical assistance to do my ordinary every day business, much less to consolidate the tabular statements.

The Corps registers have been copied and the names arranged alphabetically; except the registers of the 6th and 12th corps, none were complete, and that of the 1st Corps containing, according to Dr. Ward the Surg. in charge, 2200 names was taken to the [illegible], contrary to my orders, before it was copied.

As soon as the men are sufficiently recovered to need no further surgical treatment we send them off; the Union men to Philadelphia and the Confederates to Baltimore; very few, if any, will be able to serve in the field again.

Respectfully
Your obt. servt.
Henry James
Surg. U.S.A.

Surg J. H. Brinton U.S.A.

Letter of the Day: August 9 (1 of 2)

 

Camp Letterman

Gen’l Hospital

Near Gettysburg, Pa.

Aug. 9^th/65

 

Dear Doctor,

 

I have numerous specimens for you – have put them in ale barrels with some whisky + chlorinated soda upon them + have buried barrels and all in the ground. What shall I do with them? We will have more every day for a month to come.

 

Truly yours

H.K. Neff

Surgeon 3^rd Div.

Gen’l. Hos.

 

To Surgeon Brinton

Washington

Putting a face on it

I'm reviewing the first batch of Contributed Photographs to be uploaded to our database, and have started coming across photos of soldiers injured at Antietam and Gettysburg. It's not often we can put faces to the statistics of this war, but here's one example of a soldier injured at Gettysburg. This is what the record says:

Ludwig Kohn, private, Co. I, 214th Pa. Vols., aged 26, admitted to Harewood U.S.A. General Hospital, August 15, 1865, suffering from gunshot wound of chest, right side, ball fracturing third rib, transfixing chest, exit below scapulae same side. Wounded July 1, 1863, at the battle of Gettysburg, Pa. On admission to this Hospital, the parts had nearly healed; but patient states that the wound soon after the injury became gangrenous with considerable sloughing of soft parts; spit blood at time, and that the wound was so painful as to deprive him of his night’s rest; could not lie on his back, but was obliged to sit up day and night. There is still a slight fistulous opening, but otherwise parts entirely healed; is in very good constitutional state, and is now awaiting his discharge from U.S. service.

Contributed by R.B. Bontecou

Sickles at Gettysburg book PR

As most people who know about the Museum know, we've got part of Dan Sickles that he left behind at Gettysburg. Here's some PR about a new book by Jim Hessler which undoubtedly talks about what he left behind:

Many of you have asked me to keep you updated on the status of my Dan Sickles biography- "Sickles at Gettysburg". It is finally done and will be published on May 1, 2009! The book is full-length (400+ pages), hard cover, with maps and photos. I cover Sickles' entire life (including the murder trial, Chancellorsville, his efforts to remove George Meade from command, his expulsion from the NY Monuments Commission, etc.) with the primary focus, of course, on Gettysburg.

The book will retail at $32.95, and I intend to have signed copies available for a lower price sometime around publication (although I don't yet know that price). I did want to let you know, however, that Amazon is currently offering a pretty good pre-publication deal: $21.75 + free shipping eligibility. It's probably a few dollars lower than what I will be able to offer later, so if you are watching your money right now, I don't know how long Amazon will offer it at this price. (The author doesn't get consulted on these things.) Of course, if you do buy from Amazon, I'll be happy to sign it the next time I see you.

The Amazon link is here (or go to Amazon and search 'Sickles at Gettysburg') :

http://www.amazon.com/SICKLES-GETTYSBURG-Controversial-Civil-Committed-Gettysburg/dp/1932714642/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233799248&sr=8-1

You can read more about the book at my website: www.sicklesatgettysburg.com