Photos: The hauntingly stoic vacancy of Civil War amputees
Damaged bodies, traumatized nation
The American Civil War was a brutal enterprise. 750,000 men lost their lives in four years, many by means more violent than during any previous war.
Advances in weapons technologies—including repeating rifles—were one factor in the death toll. But a major contributor was infection from maltreated wounds. Doctors were unequipped or overburdened, and often injuries which might have been treatable resulted in bacterial infection and death.
Preemptive amputation was often implemented as a pragmatic fix.
It’s estimated that up to three quarters of all Civil War battlefield surgeries were amputations. Performed quickly to minimize blood loss and shock, countless arms, legs, hands, and fingers were lopped off in order to prevent the spread of infection.
The war between north and south was also one of the first to be photographed extensively, arriving as it did the heels of the medium’s invention less than three decades earlier. Photographers like Timothy O’Sullivan shot early reportage-style images of the aftermath of battles. But the era’s archive also houses more traditional studio portraits—created as album cards or cartes de visite—of soldiers returned from battle. Many were amputees.
These portraits are startling on first encounter. Sitters are self possessed, nonchalantly engaging the camera with the deadpan stillness demanded of long exposure photography. Any drama to be gleaned is the result of what isn’t there—phantom limbs left in battlefield hospitals. It’s a peculiar instance of early photographic disconnect wherein what we see fails to register the gravity of what is depicted. Backstory provided, however, (a number of the cards have their sitter’s autobiography printed en verso) and our understanding of these men’s dire experiences is rendered indelible.
“War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”
- William Tecumseh Sherman
