Today’s Bloody Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
In early September of 1862, Robert E. Lee invaded the United States of America. He had driven McClellan from Southern soil and now hoped by attacking Maryland to persuade the British to recognize the Confederacy. At the same time, President Abraham Lincoln badly needed a victory in order to emancipate the slaves without it seeming a desperate act against a hitherto victorious South. After several weeks of marching, outgunned, outmanned, and overextended, Lee was on the verge of calling off the invasion, when Stonewall Jackson announced he had taken the Federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. Lee came to a half at Sharpsburg and turned to face McClellan.
At Antietam Creek the fighting was some of the hardest of the war, perhaps because it was one of the few battles in which both commanders chose the field and planned their tactics. At dawn on September 17, Union General Joseph “Fighting Joe” Hooker led the attack, coming out of the north down Hagerstown Pike. He drove back Stonewall Jackson’s brigade so far, so quickly, that Lee was forced to order up reserves. D. H. Hill’s and James Longstreet’s Rebels joined the battle in the woods and the cornfields around a church belonging to a pacifist sect called the Dunkers or Dunkards. In late morning, a Yankee division broke through the Confederate line, only to be destroyed in a surprise counterattack by troops just arrived from Harpers Ferry. At midday, the fighting came to center on a sunken farm road called ever afterward “Bloody Lane.”
“Bloody Lane”
The very weight of Union forces finally drove the Rebels back to the outskirts of Sharpsburg, but McClellan failed to press his advantage and send in his reserves. By nightfall an eerie silence had fallen on the center of the battlefield.
In the late afternoon, Union troops under Major General Ambrose B. Burnside tried to take the only bridge across the Antietam, which was within Rebel rifle range, while Brigadier General Robert A. Toombs’s Georgians, hiding behind trees and stone walls, used them for target practice. The photograph shows the bridge, looking towards the Confederate positions held by the 2nd and 20th Georgia regiments.
Burnside Bridge, September 1862
When Burnside’s battered troops finally established their bridgehead by mid-afternoon, putting the North in a position to cut off a Confederate retreat across the Potomac, McClellan once again refused to commit the essential reserves. Before dusk, yet another Confederate division from Harpers Ferry arrived, led by A. P. Hill, and smashed into Burnside’s flank, destroying the North’s momentum. On the killing fields, 6,000 lay dead, another 17,000 wounded. With barely 30,000 men left in his entire army, Lee stayed on, as if to taunt McClellan, whose mind seemed an open book to the Rebel commander. When McClellan refused the challenge, Lee and all his men slipped away on the eighteenth.
McClellan had won a costly, if strategically vital victory, but he now seemed reluctant even to give chase to Lee. A much-frustrated Abraham Lincoln sacked his general and freed the slaves.
Culled from: Portraits of the Civil War
Arcane Excerpts: Mercurial Trembling Edition!
I recently purchased a set of antique books entitled Eclectic Repertory and Analytical Review, Medical and Philosophical which is a collection of medical essays published in 1811. Of course, have to share these macabre delights from the dawn of surgical science! Here’s one on the dangers of mercury fumes.
Practical Remarks on the Trembling occasioned by Mercurial Vapours. By M. BURDIN, June. M.D. From the Journal General de Médecine, 1811.
[From the New Medical and Physical Journal for November, 1811.]
Among the numerous affections to which the muscular system is liable, and which show themselves in such various ways from the tetanus to complete paralysis, are the St. Vitus’s dance, and the tremblings which affect the workmen employed in lead or quicksilver mines, barometer-makers, gilders, and looking-glass makers who silver the mirrors. I shall speak only of the last affection, which I have often had occasion to observe; the symptoms of which, I believe, are not generally known, although they are very interesting, and resemble very nearly those described by Rammazini when treating of the disease of gilders. The effects produced by mercury, depend upon the state of the metal, its quantity, and the time any one is exposed to its action. This action may either be very speedy, or may be some time in showing itself, as the following cases prove.
A person who was filling a large spiral thermometer, happened to break it over a chaffing dish which contained a great deal of fire; the mercury, which was already very warm, immediately began to evaporate, so that the workman received in an instant, a great quantity of the vapours into his mouth and nostrils. Twelve hours afterwards, a complete salivation came on, and the patient was feverish. All the symptoms produced by the mercury applied in hot vapour to the part upon which it acts with a sort of predilection, had disappeared in about ten days.
The looking-glass silverers are affected with symptoms which observe a different course; the mercury they make use of, does not produce salivation, but gives rise to tremblings, which do not begin to show themselves until after some months of constant labour. The metal which affects the silverers is in the form of grey powder, very volatile, and which they call avivure.
The avivure, treated by nitric acid, gives three fourths of mercury and one fourth of tin, slightly oxydized; the same results were obtained by distillation. The regrature for mirrors, submitted to the same analyses, gives, on the contrary, three fourths of tin and one fourth of mercury; this forms also a grey powder, but not so fine, consequently less volatile, and less dangerous.
Physicians seldom have occasion to see the trembling peculiar to these workmen, because they do not apply to any practitioner to cure them; they employ a method nearly as ancient as the disease itself, which consists in the use of baths and strong sudorifics, either alone or combined with mild purgatives. Formerly, the workmen employed in the manufacture of mirrors at Paris, were accustomed to silver them during one week, and be busied about other work for the following six weeks;: for some years past, they have usually silvered them one day in every week, which is the more healthy practice for them; but those persons who are constantly employed in this manner, are not long before they experience very severe tremblings. First, they feel slight pains in the joints, particularly in the wrists, the elbows, the knees, and the feet; then comes on a universal excitement, the head is affected, and very soon the trembling, which begins in the hands, becomes universal, if the cause which occasioned it is not withdrawn; they then speak with difficulty. I have seen a patient, in whom the convulsive shaking was so violent, that he could not handle any thing without hazard of breaking it; his legs were contracted in an extraordinary manner, so that when he descended a staircase, he was sometimes obliged to jump two or three steps; to avoid this, he accustomed himself to go down backwards on his hands. He was obliged to drink out of a dish, that he might carry the fluid more readily to his mouth, and to prevent breaking the glass between his teeth, from the convulsive affection of his jaws. When a person is in this state he is very irascible, and a fit of anger so increases the shaking, that if he were not sitting, he would infallibly fall down.
When imperious necessity compels the workmen to continue respiring this metallic atmosphere, their countenance becomes pale, and takes on an expression of intoxication, their intellects gradually fail, and they come at last to a sort of idiotism, which is not got the better of after it has continued some years; they languish in this state a longer or shorter time, and generally die of consumption; sometimes they fall a victim either to asthma or obstruction in some of the abdominal viscera, or they are carried off by apoplexy.
Workmen employed in this business, can seldom continue at it longer than eight, twelve, or eighteen years, without experiencing several attacks, to which they infallibly fall victims if they pursue their employment, even with the ordinary precautions.
I knew a workman who had followed this business twenty-five years; it is true, that within that time he had remained four years without doing any work; he had had many attacks, and they had left a trembling upon him which obliged him to change his business. This workman told me, that he had never known, in the faubourg Saint-Antoine where he dwelt, any one who could continue at the work eighteen years; that he believes he could not have stood it so long, but that he was accustomed not to open his mouth in the workshop, for he had no doubt, that the accidents that happened, were owing to the avivure which they respired during their work.
I am persuaded, that with the following precautions, one cause of these severe diseases might be removed from these unfortunate people: They ought to have a large open workshop, set apart entirely for silvering the mirrors, and to be there at no other time; while they are at work, they should apply over their mouth and nose a muslin handkerchief, which would suffer the air to pass through, and intercept the metallic particules. The tables should be placed before a chimney, in which there should be a clear fire, and behind the workmen should be an open door or window, so that the avivure may be drawn towards the fire; the workmen should also accustom themselves to take a bath from time to time, to live well, to clothe themselves well, and to avoid excess of every kind. The treatment adopted by these workmen is frequently serviceable. We can easily conceive, that the use of sudorifics, aided by mild purgatives and bathing (especially leaving off respiring the noxious vapour), cannot but be salutary. I have had occasion to observe many times, that a strong dose of opium, or a state of half intoxication, diminished the tremblings, and gave a sort of steadiness to the patient. In the case of intoxication, it is curious to see him who was trembling, regain steadiness in proportion as he drinks: while he who was steady at first, is quite tottering by the time he leave off drinking.
Andersonville Prisoner Diary Entry Du Jour!
This is the continuation of the 1864 diary of Andersonville prisoner Private George A. Hitchcock (see the archived version for all entries up until now).
Here’s today’s entry:
November 21st. Stormed all day. At one o’clock at night we took possession of a fine shanty, abandoned by second division fellows, of which we enjoyed the occupancy until night, when we were ordered to pack up, and start off in the rain. Rumors are rife among the prisoners that Sherman has something to do with it, and our suspicions are confirmed when we reach the depot and see train after train pass down towards Savannah, loaded with all kinds of household goods, men with their families, and negroes of all ages, while numberless teams of all descriptions are depositing their freight alongside the railroad. We, meanwhile, stand in a terrible, freezing biting wind for hours, waiting for transportation, until at last, more dead than alive, chilled to the heart, we go on the cars (sixty in a car).
Culled from: Andersonville: Giving Up the Ghost