Civil War Washington

CASE 1523.—Sergeant B. Wilsey, Co. D, 4th New Jersey, aged 30 years, was wounded at Petersburg, April 2, 1865. On the 11th, he was sent to Washington, to Harewood Hospital. Surgeon R. B. Bontecou, U. S. V., noted: "Gunshot wound of left shoulder, the ball fracturing the head of the humerus. Resection of the head of the humerus was performed on the field on April 2d, through a straight incision in the long diameter of the deltoid muscle, about four inches of the shaft being also removed. The case progressed favorably under simple dressings, splints, and supporting treatment, and was doing well up to the end of June, 1865; but no osseous formation had taken place up to that date." On July 26th, he was sent to Ward Hospital, Newark, and thence discharged the service, August 30, 1865. Examiner E. A. Smith, of Philadelphia, September 4, 1865, reported that: "The wound of operation was then unhealed; there was ligamentous union, and he had all the motions of the forearm and hand." The pensioner was paid March 4, 1874. The wood-cut (FIG. 422) was taken from a photograph in the Museum (Card Photographs, Vol. II, p. 6). A letter from this pensioner, dated August 8, 1874, Berlin, Pennsylvania, states that the operation in this case "was performed by Surgeon R. Sharpe, 15th New Jersey, assisted by Surgeon B. A. Watson, 4th New Jersey. As to usefulness, it is of very little use. It has gathered and discharged several times. * * I can use the hand some. * * Several pieces of bone have lately come from it. It always has gathered about once a year until last winter, and since then, nearly every month."