Repairing the "March of Mars" : The Civil War Diaries of John Samuel Apperson, Hospital Steward in the Stonewall Brigade, 1861-1865

by Roper, John Herbert

• ISBN13: 9780865547797
• ISBN10: 0865547793
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-11-01
• Publisher: Mercer Univ Pr

Summary

There are many collections of letters and Civil War memoirs available today, but very few offer in-depth information about the medical treatment of wounded soldiers. In Repairing the "March of Mars": The Civil War Diaries of John Samuel Apperson, Hospital Steward in the Stonewall Brigade, 1861-1865, editor John Herbert Roper provides an important supplement to this understudied aspect of the Civil War.

John Samuel Apperson was born in 1837 to a family of small freeholders who owned no slaves. Thus, when the war broke out in 1861, Apperson's choice to fight for the Confederacy reflected his loyalty to Virginia rather than his desire to protect and defend the slave system. Apperson enlisted in Company D of the First Virginia Brigade, and was initially assigned to the marching regiment. However, when it was discovered that in the two years prior to the war he had studied and apprenticed to a physician, Apperson was transferred to the field hospital unit. His experiences there form the substance of the diary here published for the first time.

Apperson's diary i

Table of Contents

Means and Ends	viii
Introduction	1	(16)
Part One 15 January---2 July 1861
``We Must Take Hold in Earnest''	17	(70)
Part Two 3 July 1861---20 March 1862
``A Desperate Attempt at a Place Called Bull Run Near Manassas''	87	(160)
Part Three 8 October 1862---15 April 1865
``The Sad, Blighting March of Mars'' From Sharpsburg to Appomattox Court House	247	(372)
Epilogue	619	(7)
Index	626