preview

The American Civil War: An American Soldier's Life

Decent Essays

The American Civil war was a extremely hazardous war to men land and buildings alike.
This war was the most dangerous and took the most American lives because of its newly advanced weaponry, out of date battle tactics, below average health standards of the time especially for field medics, and the fact that literally every life lost was of an American soldier's life.

The war was really impacted and made more deadly by the creation of new weapons that killed quicker and more efficiently.

Rifles and repeaters were made to make shooting and firing shots in succession faster and quicker than ever before.
Unlike muskets the newer, better weapons had the capacity of multiple rounds like revolvers could shoot 4 to 6 shots before reloading allowing multiple opportunities …show more content…

90% of men shot with a minie ball died it. Not all deaths were from the direct shot but from the doctors who tried to remove or fix it. Poorly trained field doctors allowed patients to lose too much blood which inevitably killed the man being operated on.
Bloodletting was a procedure used to drain “bad” blood from the victim of a shot. This practice led to many medical related deaths and has since been stopped by modern doctors.
This war had the most amputations out of any war. Many men with broken legs or arms got them cut off by a crude saw. No anesthetics, no antibiotics, no modern tools. These procedures were dangerous and most of the affected died of shock before stepping off the table. They relied on a leather strap to stop the patient from biting their tongue off. So you can imagine how much pain they were in…… No wonder doctors of the time were called sawbones.

The saddest part and biggest reason this war took so many U.S. lives was because only U.S. soldiers died. Both confederates and union soldiers counted as U.S. citizens. Often times friends even family would fight against each other in this moral struggle to end

Get Access