Phantom Pain: North Carolina's Artificial-Limbs Program for Confederate Veterans

Amputations constituted roughly 75 percent of all operations performed during the Civil War. Phantom Pain surveys amputation's place in Victorian medical science and the problems faced by disabled veterans as they returned to civilian life.

In this study, Ansley Wegner examines North Carolina's extensive program to supply and fit its Confederate amputees with artifical arms and legs. North Carolina's artifical-limbs program is compared with those of other former Confederate states. Types of artificial limbs patented during the Civil War and its aftermath are discussed, and the responses of recipients to their new limbs are reported.

Phantom Pain includes an index to records in the North Carolina State Archives related to Civil War amputees, artificial-limb recipients, and veterans who request commutations because they were unable to use an artificial limb. Pictures of surgical instruments, artifical limbs, and veterans with their protheses illustrate the text.