Interestingly, our last day with Chuck and Hazel was mostly spent in Maryland. The National Civil War Medicine Museum, located in Frederick, MD, was a first for all of us. We were asked to "Follow in the footsteps of soldiers and surgeons to discover the harsh conditions, personal sacrifices, and brilliant innovations of Civil War medicine, innovations that continue to save lives today."

Spanning nearly 10,000 square feet across two floors with nine thematic galleries and immersive zones, there is no way I can fully share the riches of this museum. I've picked a few of my favorite gained insights for you.
We were very impressed by the life-like dioramas and setups depicting camp life, battlefield evacuation, a field dressing station, a field hospital, and a pavilion military ward. With over 1,500 original artifacts, including the only known surviving surgeon's tent from the Civil War and well preserved torn off arm, we left feeling informed and a bit overwhelmed.
The recruitment techniques and requirements were intriguing.
This wall, lined with images of potential recruits, had listed their maladies and we opened the door to see if they became a soldier or were sent home. The guy missing a big toe was sent home but not the guy with syphillis. Hmmm.
Turns out the recruits of the Civil War were only required to have two opposing teeth so that they could open the paper cartridges used to load their rifles. Having opposing teeth was undeniably important for loading and firing the rifles of the era. The Manual of Instructions for the Military Surgeons on the Examination of Recruits and Discharge of Soldiers emphasized the importance of a soldier having “a sufficient number of teeth in good condition…to tear his cartridge quickly and with ease. The cartridge is torn with the incisor, canine, or bicuspid teeth.” Interesting indeed.


I was most intrigued (is that the right word?) about amputations which were covered extensively here. When people think of Civil War medicine, amputation is often the first image that comes to mind. The procedure became one of the war’s most recognizable symbols. Amputations were common because large bullets shattered bones beyond repair, and doctors lacked the knowledge of germs and antibiotics to clean complex wounds safely. Surgeons performed about 60,000 amputations during the war, and many soldiers quickly discovered that surviving surgery was only the beginning of a much longer struggle.

Veterans not only had to recover physically, but also assimilate back into regular life with an artificial limb in a country still developing modern systems of veteran care. For thousands of Civil War veterans, receiving a prosthetic limb involved paperwork, medical examinations, and government approval. Surviving applications for artificial limbs reveal just how formal and difficult this process was. By comparing the Civil War application processes to the modern VA prosthetics system, it becomes clear that war did more than accelerate medical innovation; it also pushed the United States toward more organized systems of long-term veteran care.
And how cool is this? Marvin Lincoln, an abolitionist from Massachusetts, was an organizer of the Massachusetts Anti-Man Hunting League and an agent of the Underground Railroad. In 1844, Lincoln began working as a carpenter with the famous prosthetic leg designer Benjamin Franklin Palmer. Too old to fight by the time of the Civil War, Lincoln instead used his skills to invent this prosthetic arm to help disabled veterans. His artificial arm featured, among other innovations, a detachable hand with a spring thumb that could grasp objects and an interior mechanism that allowed a jointed elbow to lock in place for easier lifting and clutching. “My aim has been to so construct an arm as to give increased holding and grasping powers, while it is much more simple and less expensive than those now in use,” he wrote in his patent application for the arm, which was quickly approved on August 11, 1863.
So what was the leading cause of these devastating injuries? Minié balls. The soft lead bullets widely used during the war could shatter bone and destroy tissue on impact, often leaving limbs beyond repair. Combined with poor sanitation, limited understanding of infection, and the absence of antibiotics, surgeons frequently viewed amputation as the quickest way to prevent gangrene and death. According to the National Park Service, during the war, about 470,000 men were wounded, with approximately 12.8% requiring amputation. In comparison, between 2001 and 2017, around 52,739 American service members were wounded in combat, while roughly 1,705 experienced amputations, or about 4.2%. Modern medical advancements have dramatically reduced the number of wounded service members requiring amputations, but limb loss remains a reality of warfare, proving the need for prosthetic care is not going away.
During the Civil War, the United States Army discovered the importance of veterinary medicine by trial and error. It’s a history of ethics and economics, of sacrifice, and of stupidity. Before the Civil War, any organized veterinary corps in the United States was at best an experiment, often a whim. Until the Civil War, there was only one veterinarian who served in the United States military who had a post-secondary degree in Veterinary Science—and he served in the Revolutionary War. It only took a few battles for the United States Army to realize the significance of a veterinary staff. During the first year of the conflict, the U.S. Army officially formed a veterinary service. That said, by the end of the war, more than 1.2 million horses and mules had died.