The American Civil War is of interest to many. Covering divisive and pivotal years in the history of the United States, the events of the war are commemorated in the various places where they occurred. Visitors flock to museums and other sites of historic interest related to the conflict. Many family historians in the US can trace their lines back to a civil war soldier. It was a surprise to me, a genealogist living in Canada, to find two civil war soldiers in my own family.
I've written about Alexander Matheson before. Luckily in his case, I was able to obtain his Civil War records which give details of his time in the Union Army. I do not have any records for his brother Angus. It helped to know where Alex was living before he signed up. Angus had been living in Ontario, as far as I know. That doesn't help to pinpoint where to look for his records and there are a few Angus Mathesons in the indexes. There was nothing to tell me which was the right one although some clues found in the family memories recorded when Minnie Henry was interviewed in 1931 might help. But that's for another time. The information I have so far concentrates on Alexander Matheson.
In my search for information about Alex, I went even further afield. Part of the reason I signed up for a Chicago conference about my Irish family many years ago, a family line that had nothing to do with the Mathesons, was so that I could explore Illinois further. Chicago was interesting but I went further south to find out more. I took a train to Springfield. Not only did my trip include a visit to Lincoln's Tomb but I visited most of the museums in the area. The main theme of their exhibits was the Civil War.
The history of the various battles, weapons and fighting strategies was interesting. I enjoyed those exhibits but I was more impressed by the displays that showed the developments that were an offshoot of the war. An exhibit which I believe was at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum, was about Civil War Medicine. With so many wounded men, new forms of treatment were developed. From the description of his wounds in his pension records, Alexander Matheson was lucky to keep his leg after he was wounded as the preferred method of treating fractures was amputation. Or maybe it was a lucky break and not a compound fracture, the most likely break to require the loss of a limb. My bookshelves have yielded a book about Civil War medicine which can help me explore this further.
It's not the only book I have about the Civil War, of course. I've begun a slow read of my collection starting with Battle Cry of Freedom. I'm just in the opening chapters of the book now. I'm impressed with the strands of history that have been brought in to create a comprehensive background to the start of the Civil War. It has given me a better understanding of the forces at play as well as the lives of American peoples during the pre-war time period.
Sources:
Battlefield Medicine - https://www.civilwarfamily.us › battlefield-medicine
McPherson, James M. Battle Cry of Freedom Oxford University Press, New York, 1988
Wilbur, M.D., C. Keith Civil
War Medicine 1861-1865 The Globe Pequot Press, Guildford, Connecticut, 1998
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