Civil War Washington

CASE 430.—Private A. Tarcott, Co. H, 94th New York, aged 18 years, was wounded at Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862, and admitted to the field hospital of the 2d division, First Corps. Surgeon C. J. Nordquist, 83d New York, noted: "Gunshot wound; right leg amputated above knee." Two weeks after the injury the wounded man was conveyed to Washington, where he entered Trinity Church and subsequently Judiciary Square Hospital. On June 11, 1863, he was transferred to Central Park Hospital, New York City, whence Acting Assistant Surgeon G. F. Shrady contributed to the Army Medical Museum a cast of the stump (Spec. 1373), taken nine months after the amputation, with the following history: "According to the patient's account the lower portion of his right thigh was almost completely carried away by a grapeshot, and a great deal of hæmorrhage followed the injury. Amputation at the upper third by the long posterior flap was performed, on the day following the injury, by Surgeon G. W. Avery, 94th New York. There was an attack of gangrene of the stump in the latter part of April, and the patient has suffered from necrosis of the femur. When admitted to this hospital the stump was entirely healed." Two months later the patient was furnished with an artificial limb by E. D. Hudson, of New York City, and on Novemter 15, 1863, he was discharged from service and pensioned. Examiner C. M. Johnson, of Watertown, New York, certified, May 7, 1873: "The stump is only three inches in length, tender and painful; the extremity of the femur being covered only by integument. He uses an artificial limb occasionally only." The pensioner was paid September 4, 1879.