Spent the day exploring the little historic city of Frederick. A few square blocks of historic buildings, sites and civil war personalities. More interesting than I’d thought it would be was the National Museum of Civil War Medicine. It wasn’t a flashy museum as museums go, just a few rooms packed with eye opening information.
Did you know the biggest cause of death during the civil war was disease (round of the mill diarrhea and so on) caused by unsanitary conditions in the camp?! Further exacerbated by poor diet and overall health of the soldiers. When you spend over 95% of your conscripted time off the battlefield, hanging around with others waiting to head to the front line, it can be a real killer.
My favorite snippets were of the women who assumed male aliases and dressed in drag to fight in the war. Passing the not so thorough medical exam, they often refused medical attention when injured on the battlefield in order to hide their true identities. Full of historical facts, stories and gory details like descriptions and photos of battlefield amputations which were rather common, the museum is not to everyone’s taste.
Yesterday’s post:
Tomorrow’s post: