Internal Repairs not Attempted

How many gallant North Carolinians Surgeon Howard killed with his bungling analysis of gunshot wounds is a toll of death no rolls record. But he should perhaps be forgiven his faulty diagnosis of high velocity wounds and their supposedly slight bone damage between those neat holes of entrance and exit, for little exploratory surgery was ever resorted to on the battlefield dressing table. Surgeon Howard preferred in his practice of the inexact science to draw exact inferences and make generalizations good for all cases. That such an approach to medicine is impossible was not revealed to him in his study of gunshot wounds, because he overlooked one branch of preservative surgery to which more modern medicos have, often broken heartedly, devoted their career. This is repairs of gunshots within the body cavity itself.

The doctor brave enough to rip open an abdominal wall and go in and stitch the little holes in a perforated intestine might have existed, but the new work of Pasteur was but a medical journal report, not reduced to practice, and Lister's antiseptics had not yet gained any general acceptance though gallons of rot-gut were poured into festering wounds in a dim-sighted understanding that this was “cleaning” them. Death for sure sat on the shoulder of any doctor who did such drastic surgery under the battlefield conditions of sanitation; death probably claimed its victim in the presence of all the clean towels and “hot water” the students could prepare at the most advanced medical college. Howard’s experience in dealing actively with gunshot wounds, as was the experience of most other physicians, related strictly to the arms and legs; in working with these, was the most success to be found. For success, read: the patient lived, even though a multiple amputee. Howard's appraisal of internal damage from higher-velocity bullets was quite incorrect and must have led to a great deal of suffering. Repairs effected without proper surgery were but a tribute to the tenacity with which the physiognomy of the injured soldier repaired itself.

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CHAPTER 17 The Starr Rises

From the catalog of Wallis and Wallis, British gun auctioneers ( 1962 ) at Lewes in Sussex, we read of the sale of a Starr revolver: Lot 1060 ... A 6 shot .44 Starr SA Army Perc Rev 14", brl 8", No. 51594, the top strap bearing old engraving Col. Colt Address New York, Good Condition but action As Found & frame screw not orig . Eben T. Starr of Yonkers, New York, might not have smiled at this latter day whimsey. Marking his re volver with the name of the man he dared challenge by launching a new revolving pistol business in 1858 was to him not funny. Though the modern gun bug who fraudulently marked this in the hope someone would bite on it as a hitherto unknown Colt double action revolver we trust was unsuccessful in his piracy, per haps the buyer at the Wallis and Wallis auction cherishes his purchase for what it is: one of the best and most modem revolvers of the Civil War era. Though complex inside at first glance, its parts are well thought out and reveal Star...

CHAPTER 6 Rifle Muskets: Civil War Scandals

You place me in a most embarrassing position, Mr. Secretary. How is that, Mr. Wilkeson? the gaunt-faced Penn sylvanian queried, the lines of his expression amplified by the fatigue and, somewhat, disappointment with which he laid down his role as Secretary of War for Mr. Lincoln. Because, Mr. Cameron, the newspaperman re sponded, your contract for rifle muskets with the Eagle Manufacturing Company of Mansfield, Connecticut is for only 25,000 arms, and my friends there, whom I induced to engage in this business in expectation of your issuing a further order, as your assistant Mr. Scott assured me you would, will be sorely embarrassed in their operations on this small amount. Indeed this is bad news to me, Mr. Wilkeson, War Secretary Simon Cameron sympathetically observed, as he stuffed papers from his desk drawer into a large portfolio, scanning them briefly, consigning some to the waste basket. But as you can see, I am leaving office today; I believe Mister Stanton, who repla...

French and Belgian Arms

French and Belgian materiel was considered next best to the Enfields, though the types and calibers were more varied than either Enfield or Austrian Lorenz arms. Basic pattern for the best rifles of both France and Belgium was the “carabine” of Captain Minie. Minie’s designs had exerted profound changes in the world’s small arms armament. That change was ably summed up by lexicographer Thomas Wilhelm after the War when he prepared his military dictionary. Said Wilhelm, “Minie Rifle. A species of fire-arm, invented by Capt. Minie, from whom it receives its name. It is certain in aim, and fatal in its results at 800 yards.” The claim was, if anything, inferior to the real capability of the Minie rifle. France in 1861 possessed a surplus of many arms. During the 1840 ’s the temporary procurement of guns designed by Thouvenin, Pontchara, Minie, and others kept the arsenals busy and the soldiers active testing them. Then came the Crimean War and France’s involvement on the side of Gr...

Civil War Guns

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