Wounded for Life

"Robert Hicks has given us a book that redefines the way we understand the Civil War soldier His scholarship foregrounds the long-term physical, social, and cultural effects of military service, which are transferable and critical to understanding the costs of war today."-Peter C. Miele, Executive Director, Seminary Ridge Museum "In Wounded for Life, Robert Hicks offers a deeply thoughtful and thought-provoking analysis of the lived experiences of wounded Union soldiers and veterans. Sharply written and richly nuanced, this book offers a powerful look at the gendered complexities of living a disabled life in the nineteenth century."-Sarah Handley-Cousins, author of Bodies in Blue: Disability in the Civil War North "Wounded for Life is a fascinating and ground-breaking work of intersectional scholarship. Like the bodies of the men whose wounds it biographies, this book "contains multitudes" of convergent histories: cultural and historical, medical and personal. Tracing the lives of seven veterans from their wounding and treatment through their navigation of disability and ongoing medical interventions in the postbellum decades, Hicks reveals the multiplicity of public and private embodiments they performed in an effort to survive. Rigorously researched and compulsively readable, this book will resonate with those interested in 19th century studies, the US Civil War, medical history, disability, gender, and trauma studies. This "wound's eye history of the body" will haunt the reader long after the final page."-Lindsay Tuggle, author of The Afterlives of Specimens: Science, Mourning, and Whitman's Civil War "Civil War medicine is not what you think - and this book proves it. An intimate, compassionate and contextual examination of Civil War patients and doctors couched in a compelling narrative. It takes the Civil War experience far beyond the battlefield."-David Price, Executive Director, National Museum of Civil War Medicine