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The Bloody Truth Research Paper

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The Bloody Truth The Civil War was an important part of history. The issues of slavery and central power divided the United States. It was fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The American Civil War began when Confederate forces attacked a U.S Union Military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Abraham Lincoln was the President during this war. Many people lost their lives during this war. The Civil War was America’s bloodiest conflict. Almost as many men died in confinement during the Civil War as were killed in the whole of the Vietnam War. About 620,000 men lost their lives while fighting for what they believed in. That is roughly 2% of the population. Neither the Confederates or the Union had mechanisms in place to handle the amount of death that the nation was about to experience. About one in every four soldiers would not return home after war. Many men during the Civil War died from disease. For every three soldiers killed in battle, five more died of disease. Because the …show more content…

237). Untrained men were also allowed to perform surgery on fellow soldiers. The soldiers sometimes had no choice because they had no one else around to help. For example General Longstreet had to amputate John Bell Hood’s arm. Another soldier who was wounded was Chamberlain (pg 219). Chamberlain was a colonel from the union. He injured his foot but his foot was not directly shot at so there was no shattered bones. In this case when there is no shattered bones which meant patching up the injury with a bandage was the only way to go. In conclusion, the Civil War was the bloodiest war for Americans. Many men died of disease and injuries, or just straight gunshots. It was a period of time where people started to realize medicine mattered. Yes, both sides were devastated by battle and disease, but the Civil War advanced medicine into the modern

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