Killer Angels By Michael Shaara

Wounds of the Past

Battles were fought, lives were taken and wounds were made, some of which remain as an indication of victory or stay as a mark of failure. Whichever one it may be, there were different strategies that were used to try to heal injuries that occurred on the battlefield, more specifically during the Civil War. The problem was, there were more men dying of diseases than men that were falling on the battlefield. Doctors were required to have only two years of medical training, therefore medicine was not as profound back then compared to present day advancements. Three of many brave men that experienced injuries during the Civil War in the book Killer Angels by Michael Shaara were Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, John Buford, and

In the middle of the battle, Chamberlain gets shot at his hip as described on page 219, “Chamberlain climbed up on a high boulder...He was knocked clean off the rock. Blow on the side like a lightning bolt.” During the Civil War, wounds obtained in the abdomen by gunshot were approached with cautery, which is an instrument that burns the flesh to stop infection or bleeding. A different procedure were the tourniquets, which were used to create pressure to block a blood vessel in hopes of creating blood suspension. Both of these techniques were primarily used to manage the blood from a ruptured blood vessel, especially when conditions were profuse.

Then there is Buford, who was a Major General who had a good eye for a good ground and knows its true value. On the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, he got shot on the arm, “He had been hit once in the left arm and bleeding had stopped, but the genuine pain was just beginning. They had wrapped the arm and put his coat back on…”(p.146). To help with the pain, morphine was given which is an extraction from opium. During the Civil War, surgeons were not yet introduced to bacteria so gunshot wounds were drained with boiled oil because they believed the infection was a result of the poisonous

His shoulder was torn and he was bleeding from the armpit during the second day of the Gettysburg battle, “He turned, showed his side. Tear just under the right shoulder, blood filling the armpit. Kilrain stuffed white cloth in the hole”(p.218). Furthermore, on page 307, Tom tells Chamberlain, “...I had been down to the hospital. Godawful mess. No shade, no room. They lying everywhere...They cuttin’ off arms and legs right out in the open..” Surgeries and amputations were a very common procedure and anesthetics were often given in order to lessen the pain. Nevertheless, there were too many people out in the open whom were being transported to and from, running the risk of infection and disease especially if surgeons had a habit of not washing their hands. Tom also tells Chamberlain that Kilrain, “...died this morning...It wasn’t the wounds. They say his heart give out…” which is stated on pages 307-308. Those who were in the war had a higher risk of having a heart disease which could have been, in this case, the cause of Kilrain’s heart failure. Back then, there were no specialists in cardiology because knowledge of heart disease was not attained at that moment, therefore there was nothing that could have been