The Doctor Is Out

I chose to be very concise in what I looked at in the EKU archives. What I viewed was the records of the comings and goings of the 8^th regiment of the Kentucky Volunteer Infantry, as kept by Captain John Wilson. These records are found in Box 3, Folder 1 of the Civil War collection. I expected to find “Absent Without Leave” (AWOL) numbers to be very high, especially from what we had discussed in class. What I found instead was what I feel is a much harsher reality; rampant sickness, to the point of being crippling to the entire regiment. Studying just the enlisted men, it became apparent that sickness was reason for half to most of the reasons for men being gone from their regiment. Using the years of 1862-63, the greatest number I found of enlisted men listed as absent due to sickness, was 92% (March 1862), the lowest was 50%(December 1863), this encompasses all enlisted men marked as absent from duty. What this shows to me is that had there been more medical treatment, and more precautionary treatment, the usable force just among this single regiment would have risen dramatically. Also, assuming this is a reliable sampling of 1 regiment; one can draw a hypothesis and also assume that it was no better amongst other brigades and regiments, whether they were Union or Confederate. Yes, this was a time that we as humans did not fully understand medicine, as we all know of the amputation tents set up on the battlefields.

            In conclusion, what I am left with is more questions than answers. For starters, I am left wondering if these men had been better cared for; would it have led to a quicker end to the war? Would better medical care, even for those times, have improved morale in the field and at home? Not listed in these records, is the causes for these sicknesses, what caused these sicknesses, flu, cold, typhoid, malnutrition? Or, were there men faking it, this would have been much easier to do at the time because of the lack of medical knowledge?