Reference no: EM132287928
Assignment
The estimates of soldiers killed during the American Civil war War approach 700,000. In today's numbers, that would be the equivalent of nearly 7 million killed (current population is approximately 10 ten times what it was in 1865). Most of those deaths did not occur directly on impact of gun or cannon fire.
They were the result of infection and disease that took days and weeks to develop and claim their victims. One can imagine the strains placed on medical caregivers in the nation at the time. Some historians of medicine note the explosive advances in surgical technique, technology, and medical knowledge that occur as a result of wartime experience. But the Civil War also brought about a revolution regarding the administration of patient care during the war. That revolution is women.
The participation of women as nurses and medical aides and experts during the war was unprecedented and shocking to many, who believed that women, especially model Christian women, were too sensitive and delicate to handle such scenes of gore and suffering.
Many, many American women were involved in nursing, which pushed against commonly held biases against women's strength and fortitude. For example, Harriet Tubman aided battlefield surgeons as they performed amputations, and Clara Barton, who founded the American Red Cross, implemented efficient regimens for quality control in hospitals, as well as standards of patient care that remain a model today. ), This Primary Source Exercise is designed to introduce students to the world of battlefield medicine in wartime hospitals.
DOCUMENTS
Document 1 is a collection of Civil War photographs showcasing the horrors and realities of wartime injuries and treatment. Women's brave entry into bloody battlefield hospitals and surgical theaters is but one of the many stories of the American Civil War. The war's scope of destruction and despair remains difficult to comprehend even 150 years after the fact.
Document 2 contains excerpts from the diary of Amanda Akin, a Civil War nurse. Ms. Akin exemplifies a typical nurse volunteer in many respects. She came from a middle-class, educated, and Protestant Christian background.
Document 3 The is a poem from the poet Walt Whitman, who became famous in the mid- 1800s for his eloquence in describing democratic spirit of the American dream. That eloquence, that gift of capturing difficult-to-describe scenes and emotions, was put to the test as he tried to convey his experience during the war.
His poem "A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown" is included in this assignment, because Whitman also served as a surgical aide during the war. His view is that of both direct experience and artistic expression, which is one way some people attempt to make sense of such an incomprehensible event.
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Read Chapter 14 through 16 of the textbook.
2. Observe closely the images that make up Document 1, a collection of Civil War medicine-related photographs. Write down your initial reaction, details, and overall impressions of what you see. Remember that the Civil War took place before antibiotics to fight infection had been discovered, and that the causes of many contagious diseases were still unknown.
3. Read Document 2, excerpts from the diary of Amanda Akin, a Civil War nurse.
4. Read and "take in" the poem in Document 3, "A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown" by Walt Whitman, a famous American poet of the nineteenth century.
5. Answer the questions that follow and be sure to label your answers and submit in the inbox below in the accepted formats.
QUESTIONS TO ANSWER
1. Why is the Civil War considered the first modern war?
2. What was the primary killer of Civil War soldiers?
3. Document 2: Which is the best explanation for the surgeon's reaction to Miss Akin's being placed as a worker in the hospital ward?
4. Write a response to Walt Whitman's poem. How does it make you feel? What does it bring to mind? Describe in your own words the scene that Whitman describes here.
Document 1
Collection of Civil War Medicine Photographs
Title: [Savage Station, Va. Field hospital after the battle of June 27] Creator(s): Gibson, James F., b. 1828, photographer Date Created/Published: 1862 June 30. Medium: 1 negative: glass, stereograph, wet collodion. Summary: Photograph from the main eastern theater of war, the Peninsular Campaign, May-August 1862. Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on publication.
Call Number: LC-B811-491 [P&P] LOT 4172-A (corresponding print) Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C., 20540 USA "Field Day." Otis Historical Archives, National Museum of Health and Medicine, CP 1043. Date created: 1861-1865 License: This work is believed to be in the public domain. Users are advised to make their own copyright assessment and to understand their rights to fair use.
Annie Bell Nashville, Tennessee (circa 1864) Nurse Annie Bell with patients after the Battle of Nashville. This image was used by the Sanitary Commission during its Northwest Sanitary Fair in Chicago in 1865. Accessed
Title: [Fredericksburg, Va., Nurses and officers of the U.S. Sanitary Commission] Creator(s): Gardner, James, b. 1832, photographer Date Created/Published: 1864 May [20]. Summary: Woman seated in center with umbrella identified as volunteer nurse Abby Gibbons of New York City with her daughter Sarah Hopper Gibbons seated at left (Source: descendant Andrea Schear, Oct. ober 2013) Photograph from the main eastern theater of war, Grant's Wilderness Campaign, May-June 1864. Photograph includes women. Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on publication. Call Number: LC-B811- 741 [P&P] LOT 4180 (corresponding print) Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C., 20540 USA
Document 2
Excerpts from the diary of nurse Amanda Akin, published as a book in 1909 titled, The Lady Nurse of Ward E, By Amanda Akin Stearns
From April 28, 1863,
I meekly followed through the long ward, unable to return the gaze of the occupants of the twenty-six beds, to the table in the center, and with a sinking heart watched her raise the head of a poor fellow in the last stages of typhoid, to give him a soothing draught. Could I ever do that? For once my courage failed. (p. 13)
...Jobes took the first opportunity to say, "This is the lady who is to have charge of the ward," the only reply we received, accompanied with a little nod, was "Humph!" evidently not approving of a lady's presence in a hospital. As you can imagine, that touched my mettle, and was a good tonic, so I went to work. (pp. 14, 15)
Document 3
A poem, "A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown"
By Walt Whitman
A march in the ranks hard-prest, and the road unknown, A route through a heavy wood with muffled steps in the darkness, Our army foil'd with loss severe, and the sullen remnant retreating, Till after midnight glimmer upon us the lights of a dim-lighted building, We come to an open space in the woods, and halt by the dim-lighted building, 'Tis a large old church at the crossing roads, now an impromptu hospital Entering but for a minute I see a sight beyond all the pictures and poems ever made, Shadows of deepest, deepest black, just lit by moving candles and lamps, And by one great pitchy torch stationary with wild red flame and clouds of smoke, By these, crowds, groups of forms vaguely I see on the floor, some in the pews laid down, At my feet more distinctly a soldier, a mere lad, in danger of bleeding to death, (he is shot in the abdomen,) I stanch the blood temporarily, (the youngster's face is white as a lily,) Then before I depart I sweep my eyes o'er the scene fain to absorb it all, Faces, varieties, postures beyond description, most in obscurity, some of them dead, Surgeons operating, attendants holding lights, the smell of ether, the odor of blood, The crowd, O the crowd of the bloody forms, the yard outside also fill'd, Some on the bare ground, some on planks or stretchers, some in the death-spasm sweating, An occasional scream or cry, the doctor's shouted orders or calls, The glisten of the little steel instruments catching the glint of the torches, These I resume as I chant, I see again the forms, I smell the odor, Then hear outside the orders given, Fall in, my men, fall in; But first I bend to the dying lad, his eyes open, a half-smile gives he me, Then the eyes close, calmly close, and I speed forth to the darkness, Resuming, marching, ever in darkness marching, on in the ranks, The unknown road still marching.