Civil War Washington

CASE 938.—Private C. H. Shields, 6th Maine Battery, aged 21 years, was injured by the explosion of some cartridges during the battle of the Wilderness, May 6, 1864. Surgeon H. C. Tompkins, 4th New York Artillery, reported his admission to the Artillery Brigade Hospital, Second Corps, with "severe burn of face and hands by powder." From the field the injured man passed to Armory Square Hospital at Washington, and thence to Cony Hospital at Augusta, where he was discharged from service for disability June 13, 1865, and pensioned. Examining Surgeon J. B. Bell reported, July 8, 1865, that "the disability results chiefly from disfigurement. Both ears were disagreeably deformed and partially destroyed. The left side of the face is scarred and blackened, and the use of the left hand is somewhat impaired by the scar of the burn." Examiner G. W. Burket, of Tyrone, Penn., certified September 4, 1873: "Both ears were burnt, causing partial deafness from closure of the external meatus of the left ear." Examiner I. E. Oatman, of Sacramento, Cal., September 4, 1879, confirmed the existence of partial deafness, also that the upper and greater portion of both ears were burned off by the explosion.