Meet Private Samuel H. Decker:
His basic story is this: A Union artillery gunner, Decker lost both arms in a loading mishap in October of 1862. Three years later he had *built these new arms himself*. From this account:
With the aid of his ingenious apparatus he is enabled to write legibly, to pick up any small objects, a pin for example, to carry packages of ordinary weight, to feed and clothe himself, and in one or two instances of disorder in the Congressional gallery [where he was employed as a doorman] has proved himself a formidable police officer.
I’ve seen this picture crop up on more than a few blogs recently, under the heading of “This Guy is Fucking Rad!!!” and accompanied by *squeees* of how steampunk he is. And, on the one hand, he is really rad. On the other . . . jeez, it’s a little bit grisly if that’s *all* and *only* what we take away from this picture. It’s tantamount to looking at pics of female concentration campers and saying: “Damn, girl, you are skinny! What’s your secret?”
Listen: It is straight-up monstrous for any of us to even lightly draw an equal sign between what this man suffered in the name of human dignity and liberty, and the stories we write or how we may choose to dress up on a free weekend now and again. I’ve written about this a little before, and I still maintain that when we write steampunk and leave out a real and honest treatment of guys like Pvt. Decker, we’re doing a Bad Thing.
The above account of Decker’s extraordinary achievement–one of a slew of totally uncelebrated Americans who helped to transform doctors’ notions of the degree to which a “cripple” could return to “normal life”–is drawn from Photographs of Surgical Cases and Specimens, a collection of photographs (obviously) and case histories collected by the U.S. Army from 1862 on, and distributed as cards among medical professionals as a way of disseminating information on how a variety of docs and field surgeons had coped with the unprecedented carnage of the modern battlefield.
The Medical Heritage Library digitized the entire collection for the first time this year (the cards were widely circulated, so individual remarkable images–like those of Decker–have long floated around online, although often devoid of context). If you have a strong stomach and are interested in the real and remarkable nitty-gritty of the Victorian Age here on US soil, this is simply an incredible read:
Digital Highlight: Civil War photography from the Army Medical Museum | Medical Heritage Library
At the outset of the Civil War in 1861, the lack of experienced surgeons in the ranks of both the Union and Confederate armies represented a looming medical crisis. In 1862 the United States Army Medical Museum was formed, in part to advance practical research into new ways of treating and diagnosing the types of trauma that had become commonplace on the modern battlefield. Almost immediately after it was established, the museum’s first curator, Dr. John Hill Brinton, began collecting specimens from field hospitals and military grave sites. In the years that followed, individual portraits along with photographs of these specimens and accompanying case histories were disseminated to hospitals and medical institutions around the country.
In 1865, Lieutenant William Bell, who would later gain fame for his photographs of the American West, was appointed Chief Photographer of the museum. The artistic composition and quality of Bell’s work often bore greater resemblance to the celebrated portraiture of Matthew Brady than to standard, utilitarian medical photography. Under the direction of Brinton’s successor, Dr. George Alexander Otis, Bell photographed the portrait sitters and anatomical specimens in a studio at the museum, and was ultimately responsible for the majority of the images that comprise this collection.
And, of course, I’d be remise if I failed to mention my own steampunk novella–complete with frisky robots and crippled soldiers–available for Kindle via Amazon, and as both a handmade print and DRM-free digital edition (including Kindle) directly from me.
