Civil War Washington

CASE 568.—Private C. Volgel, Co. F, 14th Connecticut, aged 37 years, was wounded before Petersburg, October 2, 1864, and admitted to the field hospital of the 2d division, Second Corps, where Surgeon I. Scott, 7th West Virginia, recorded: "Shot fracture of right knee." Surgeon J. C. McKee, U. S. A., reported that "the patient was admitted to Lincoln Hospital, Washington, October 8th, with shot wound of right knee joint, the ball entering antero-posteriorly, severing the capsular ligament on its internal aspect and opening the joint. When admitted, the parts were highly inflamed and synovial fluid was constantly discharging from the wound. The limb was placed in a box splint and surrounded with bran. Improvement followed the treatment. In the course of three months recovery had taken place with complete anchylosis of the joint." On June 2, 1865, the patient was discharged from service and pensioned. Examiner H. L. Burritt, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, at successive periods certified to the character of the wound and to the leg being fixed "in a nearly straight position; joint painful and whole limb swollen on motion and useless." The pensioner was paid December 4, 1879. A photograph of the injured limb, taken at Lincoln Hospital, was contributed by Surgeon McKee (Contributed Photographs, Vol. 3, No. 34), and is represented in the wood-cut (FIG. 231).