#shauna devine

[idratherdreamofjune]

If we get the Rebel wounded, so much the better, for a great many of them were stuck by Rush's Lancers in the first charge they made, and lance wounds are rather a great luxury in military surgery.

A Union medical cadet after the Battle at Brady Station, June 1863. Via Learning from the Wounded, by Shauna Devine.

[idratherdreamofjune]

How vividly I recall my first operation - a simple amputation of the forearm in an army hospital in 1862. I was greatly alarmed after my very first incision lest the patient might bleed to death . . . I ended [the war] by being as little afraid of even the most furious hemorrhage as anyone could possibly be.

W. W. Keen, Union Army physician (via Learning from the Wounded, by Shauna Devine)