Secret Hero — Jonathan Letterman, the Civil War Healer of the Fallen
As lethal as modern warfare has become, it’s comforting to know that today’s soldiers stand a better chance than ever before of surviving combat injuries. In Afghanistan, battlefield first aid, rapid evacuations, and quickly reachable military field hospitals have saved thousands of men and women who might otherwise have died. What’s remarkable about these casualty management procedures is that they haven’t changed that much from the 1860s, when they were introduced in the Union Army.
Innovations in battlefield medical care came about in the early part of the Civil War in response to the horrendous conditions wounded soldiers faced. A classic example was the Battle of Second Manassas (Second Bull Run to the Confederates), a clash in late August 1862 in which Confederate troops defeated Union forces. More than 22,000 soldiers were killed or wounded in the Virginia conflict—nearly 14,000 of them Federal troops. Wounded soldiers were strewn about the battlefield, crying out for water and medical attention. Their shrieks and moans increased as the days wore on. A full week would pass before all of the Union injured were removed from the battlefield and transported to hospitals—grisly proof of the Army’s appalling inefficiency in dealing with casualties.
Miraculously, the outlook for the wounded changed just two weeks later. On September 17, 1862, Union and Confederate forces clashed again at Sharpsburg, Maryland, in the Battle of Antietam. After 12 hours of fighting, some 23,000 men (over 12,000 Union soldiers and more than 10,000 Confederates) had fallen—the bloodiest single day of combat in American history. In stark contrast to the delays experienced at Manassas, every injured Union soldier was evacuated from the Antietam battlefield within 24 hours.
The author of this dramatic turnaround was a lanky, bearded, Donald Sutherland look-alike—Maj. Jonathan Letterman, a 37-year-old military surgeon who’d been named medical director of the Army of the Potomac three months earlier. Letterman’s genius revealed itself the moment he took up his new duties. He immediately instituted revolutionary improvements in battlefield casualty management, and at Antietam, his reforms began to pay off. Letterman’s innovations were so farsighted that they’re still used today, earning him the title of the Father of Battlefield Medicine.