American Neurology: Born on the Battlefield

Civil War physicians were at the forefront of the development of specialty medicine as it began to emerge in the mid-19th century. Ophthalmology was perhaps the first specialty to separate itself from the general practice model of the day. American neurology was birthing itself during the Civil War. In essence, European neurology was spawned in its teaching hospitals while American neurology was born on the battlefield.

Two of its prominent midwives were William A. Hammond and S. Weir Mitchell. While Mitchell was watching nerve injured soldiers relieve their agony by soaking their limbs in ice water and wondering why, Hammond was helping create the systems and infrastructure that made specialty medicine possible. Hammond was the man who declared neurology will be a specialty in America.

This talk explores the seminal contributions of these two pioneers who helped American neurology emerge out of the carnage of the Civil War.

PTSD and Soldiers Heart

Soldiers through the eons of human history have carried emotional wounds from combat. During and after Vietnam, the psychological wounds of war were re-described and given a new name, post-traumatic stress disorder. The historical record leaves little doubt many Civil War soldiers were left suffering from PTSD, with depression, anxiety, flashbacks, suicide and alcoholism strikingly like those who fought in Vietnam. 

Many authors have written that soldier’s heart (irritable heart, Da Costa’s syndrome) was the Civil War equivalent of PTSD, but this is too simplistic a formulation.

Writing abounds stating that Da Costa linked the disorder he was describing to the stress of combat but this is simply untrue. The cardinal manifestations of soldier’s heart were tachycardia, palpitations, shortness of breath, chest pain and exercise intolerance. Although patients with PTSD may have anxiety and even panic attacks, the clinical picture described of irritable heart syndrome does not in general match that of PTSD.

There is no question many Civil War soldiers suffered from PTSD. There is no question that irritable heart was a real clinical syndrome. But equating the two is simply not accurate. This myth-busting talk details how there is more to the story.

Audacious Acts of the Civil War

During the Seven Days Battles in 1862, Robert E. Lee’s troops nicknamed him “Audacity” Lee as his aggressive tactics drove a superior enemy force from the gates of Richmond.

But Lee was not the only one capable of audacious behavior. This talk highlights other audacious acts of the Civil War, such as a free, educated Black woman, Mary Bowser, a Union spy with a phenomenal memory, masquerading as a slave in the Confederate White House, the Great Locomotive Chase in which Union raiders stole a locomotive and led pursuers on a wild chase through North Georgia, the audacious charge of the out-of-ammo, bayonet-wielding 20th Maine Infantry Regiment down the hill at Little Round Top that saved the day at Gettysburg, the Rebel rangers who kidnapped a Union general right out of his headquarters, Clara Barton removing a bullet from a soldier’s face at Antietam (using a pocketknife!) and eight Confederate sailors sitting shoulder to shoulder in the pitch dark, hand cranking the propeller shaft of the CSS Hunley on a suicide mission to become the first submarine to sink an enemy ship. The Hunley was lost for the next 131 years until finally found—not by the Navy, but by a team led by the novelist Clive Cussler in 1995. She was raised in 2000 and the crew given a full military funeral in 2004.

The Hidden History of the Women Who Fought

Women have been finding their way into combat, through the front door or the back, for centuries. Now, instead of toting muskets they fly fighter jets. Period estimates ran as high as four hundred women who fought in our Civil War--in the infantry, in the cavalry, in the artillery. Historians now estimate the actual number runs closer to a thousand.

DeAnne Blanton, who spent her career as an archivist specializing in 19th century U.S. Army records at the National Archives and Records Administration, and Lauren M. Cook, wrote They Fought Like Demons, whose pages document at least two hundred and fifty instances of brave women who took up arms to fight for or against their country.

Lauren Cook Burgess later published the collected letters of Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, one of the only firsthand accounts of a woman soldier in An Uncommon Soldier.

This talk will highlight a few of these amazing stories.

Sarah Rosetta, aka Lyons, Wakeman