"Amputations accounted for seventy-five percent of all operations performed by Civil War doctors" (Napoleonic Guide). Medical physicians in the eighteenth century were not as well trained or efficient as present-day workers; therefore, the attention that wounded men in battle received was not trustworthy. The majority of the wounds resulted in amputation for two reasons. One reason was that physicians did not have the knowledge that they maintain today to properly care for a wound. Another reason was simply to eliminate the spread of infections or diseases. The fear of amputation alone was extremely disturbing. One understood why the medical procedure was so feared after he gained the knowledge of how military physicians performed them.
             Many different tools were used when physicians performed an amputation. The first and most obvious tool was known as an amputation knife. Amputating knives were single-edged and used for cutting soft tissue during the amputation. Surgical scalpels were used for cutting or dissecting small, delicate tissue. One of the most important tools used was an amputation saw or commonly called the "bonesaw" which severed larger and longer bones. A bone file removed the rough edges on the bone after being cut by a saw. Hemorrhaging, when an excessive amount of blood was lost, was a dilemma that occurred frequently. To reduce the possibility, a tourniquet was designed to put pressure on an artery during surgery. It was a tight bandage that surrounded the wound and temporarily stopped the flow of blood through the limb.
             Before a wounded soldier received medical attention, he usually had to wait a significant amount of time. The wait for treatment could be a day or sometimes even two days. When the soldier was eventually under the care of a physician, more than likely he was not given any form of an anesthetic. Ether and chloroform were commonly used, but supplies could not...