What Really Came From Being in the Civil War

In my opinion, I believe that personal perseverance was more important during the Civil War. At first, I thought it was more important to service to one’s country, until I realized the risks and dangers of being in the Civil War. First of all, the Cumberland (the Confederacy’s ship) and the Merrimack (the Union’s ship) attacked one another at a short distance away from each other, so the battle lasted a long time. The only way to destroy an iron clad (the Cumberland) was to somehow get fire inside of the ship, which was difficult to do. People in the Confederacy and Union had to fight for long periods of time, sometimes getting injured. If someone were to get injured, they had a chance of getting worse, or dying, from the treatment. Surgeons often carried out resections on people with battle wounds. In “Under the Knife,” Terry L. Jones wrote, “Besides being a difficult procedure, resection also carried a high risk of profuse bleeding, infection and postoperative necrosis of the flesh.” Not only did people in the Civil War have a high risk of getting injured in battles, but they also had a high risk of dying from the treatment of the battle injuries.

Another danger of being in the Civil War was getting hurt from advanced weapons. In 1862, 240 patents issued for military weapons, according to “The Art of Death.” These weapons included the most important invention in the Civil War; the rifled musket. The Minié ball used in the rifled musket could kill someone at half a mile and accurate at 250 yards. The “Under the Knife” article by Terry L. Jones explains how Major General Richard S. Ewell’s left kneecap was hit by a Minié ball during the Civil War in 1862. Campbell Brown, Ewell’s aide who saw the operation on Ewell’s leg said about the Minié ball, “pierced the joint & followed the leg down for some inches. When the leg was opened, we found the knee-cap split half in two — the head of the tibia knocked into several pieces — & that the ball had followed the marrow of the bone for six inches breaking the bone itself into small splinters & finally had split into two pieces on a sharp edge of bone.” The technology of new weapons during the Civil War came with more opportunities to get hurt or killed.

With so many people killed in during the Civil War, there was no point of fighting so hard, just to lose loyal citizens. It was more important to have enough people in a community, rather than enough people to fight in the Civil War. 

Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6e/Battle_of_Hampton_Roads_3g01752u.jpg