Union Combat Veterans of the Civil War

Combat veterans are subjected to horrible mental and sometimes physical scars upon their return to a civilian lifestyle. Terrifying nightmares and constant horrific memories are just a few mental side effects of war that, in most cases, every veteran suffers from. Some have to face an even bigger challenge after losing a limb due to the ferocity of battle. Brian Matthew Jordan, author of Living Monuments: Union Veteran Amputees and the Embodied Memory of the Civil War, tries to put this into perspective (one could not understand unless they had experienced the extremes of war first hand) by up lifting the veterans as the living monuments of the civil war.

Jordan argues that the sectional identity of the Union’s amputee veteran population had not been lost; rather they used their ailments as a reminder of the terrible effects of war. Jordan states, “These men allowed their fragmented bodies to stand as evidence of the obstinacy of the southern rebellion and the magnitude of human loss.” Jordan also states that only a handful of amputees in the Union claimed their prosthetic limbs that they had been entitled to by the U.S. government. A Baptist preacher said it best referring to an empty veteran’s coat sleeve as "a weapon more powerful than that with which they conquered the Rebellion.” These men remained the living memory of the civil war for many years after it had ended.

A census conquered that 21,753 out of 29,980 had survived amputation surgeries, even though Jordan states that those numbers were unquestionably more. Although physically handicapped, it seemed that many of the amputee veterans remained in high spirits by helping other veterans and organizing a fraternity of brothers. One thing that the band of brothers helped to do was to spread and explain, that although they were left with a physical disability, they served a greater good by fighting to reunite the Union as well as helping to abolish slavery and make a major revolutionary change. Maimed veterans became symbols of freedom and the struggle for equality throughout the remainder of their lives.

 

The effects of war, five members of the fraternity of brothers.

Photo courtesy of Google images.Jordan, Brian. "Living Monuments: Union Veteran Amputees and the Embodied Memory of the Civil War." Civil War History. no. 2 (2011): 121-152.