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Union Soldier Life

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Life for the Union Soldier was not only brutal on the battlefield, but the camp life for a Union soldier was just as cruel. With the lack of personal hygiene, unsavory and repugnant food, and the shortage of clothing made living, a very difficult thing to do. Growth in the number of people with diseases was also a contributing factor to the massive amounts of death within the camp and as well as the post-battle wounds that often left either a man with one less limb or put in a mental institution. A Union Soldier’s life during the Civil War was cruel and horrific during their stay at the camps. The lack of basic hygiene was a very large issue around this time. The living conditions at the camps were disgusting, with piled up garbage and rotten …show more content…

“Gangrene is a terrible condition in which living tissue dies and decays. Gangrene can occur when blood flow to an area of the body is blocked or when certain types of bacteria invade a wound.” The procedure they performed would be to cut the pieces of dead tissue off the infected area or in serious cases, amputate the limb. The aftermath of the Civil War was gruesome. A very common ammunition was the minnie ball, which would split or smash the bone because of its large mass which weighed from 1 to 1 1/2 ounces. These bullets were mostly used because of its large impact on the soldiers and also made the rifles have better accuracy. “Abdominal or head wounds were almost always fatal, In addition, bullets carried dirt and germs into the wound that often caused infection.” The wounds from these minnie balls were so horrifying that most soldiers who survived the the impact, would have to get a limb amputated. There were over 30,000 amputation procedures done during the Civil War and depending on where you received the surgery is what your death rate was. “Hip amputations… had mortality rates of around 83%. An upper arm amputation… had a mortality rate of about 24%.” Not only did soldiers have to endure the war, once they came home their partners would notice that things were different with

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