Gettysburg Surgeons: Facing a Common Enemy in the Civil War’s Deadliest Battle

Independent scholar Franco offers thorough research on the medics in the battle of Gettysburg, which she treats as a microcosm for medicine during the Civil War. She lays out how the surgeons and other medical professionals who served during the war were trained and what they did after the war. She utilizes diaries, letters, and memoirs to explore their feelings and day-to-day activities leading up to Gettysburg, what surgery and hospital accommodations were like during the battle, how casualties were treated, and what happened to the dead and injured in the weeks and months after the fighting. She also shows how battlefield surgeons improvised new techniques that would become standard. The book is organized so readers can jump to individual topics without reading the whole book. It’s highly readable and approachable, attempting to show the personalities of the medics and the reality of their situations.