By John Vance Lauderdale

The Wounded River takes the reader again greater than a hundred thirty years to bare a fabulous, first-hand account of nineteenth-century battle. within the technique, the paintings cuts the legends and mythology that experience come to border and outline debts of America's bloodiest struggle. Of equivalent value, Peter Josyph's editorial paintings in this very good number of letters from the Western Americana department of Yale University's Beinecke infrequent publication and Manuscripts Library complements and clarifies Lauderdale's experinces as a doctor aboard the U.S. military sanatorium send D. A. January.  
      The reader appears to be like on whereas Lauderdale, a brand new York civilian agreement healthcare professional, operates on 1000s of accomplice and Union wounded. The younger doctor's transparent writing variety and his nice compassion for those unlucky males whose our bodies have been ripped aside through bullets, shell fragments, and bayonets allows us to capture a disturbiing glimpse of what sleek war does to humanity. ultimately, we research of Lauderdale's factors for volunteering, his impressions of the "hospital send" D. A. January, accomplice morale, the Abolitionist reason, and black slavery. The Wounded River is a needs to learn for a person attracted to the genuine American Civil War.

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Extra info for The Wounded River: The Civil War Letters of John Vance Lauderdale, M.D.

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Army hospital steamer D. A. January from The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion. under Dr. Hoff's direction, but by September 29 it was loading troops again. "This boat," wrote Dr. Hoff, "on account of her light draught and airy cabin, was well suited for the purpose. "34 By August of 1865, it had carried a total of 23,738 patients. The sick rooms of the January were located on the middle (or side) deck, with beds also installed on the lower (or boiler) deck beneath it. The nurses' quarters were farther aft on the middle deck, and Lauderdale's stateroom was directly above them on the cabin deck, just behind the larboard wheelhouse, where he often sat by the guardrail in front of his door penning his faithful reports to sister Frank of all that he passed along the river.

He made this clear when he vetoed Frank's proposal to publish some of them locally, probably in the Livingston Republican, a common practice for soldiers but one for which Lauderdale did not feel his correspondence was suitable. It was important to him for Frank to understand that these were impromptu reports of private, completely unnewsworthy excursions and were never intended as polished writings. The letters INTRODUCTION 33 are, indeed, rough, but their being very much of the moment, written directly after and frequently during the event, gives them a vitality and a compelling believability, a combination clearly lacking in some memoirs written for publication years after the war.

Lauderdale could not compare with experienced Regular Army doctors, or even with newer Regulars or volunteers and contract surgeons 34 PART 1: THE SEAT OF WAR who came to the Army after substantial civilian practice. D. Letters written upon his return to Bellevue reveal an especially eager and able apprentice surgeon, and if he was not fervidly passionate on the subject of his profession, he was certainly a serious-minded, hardworking practitioner. Although he had passed an exam to graduate, and one to become a resident, there was no qualifying exam for him to be working aboard the January.

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