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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm to blame in chalkerate boarding and I'm fared out

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Speaker 1: And we are continuing on with our look into Civil

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Speaker 1: War medicine. In the last installment of this little mini

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Speaker 1: series we've been working on, we examine the life of

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Speaker 1: Mary Edwards Walker, who was the only woman surgeon formally

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Speaker 1: engaged for field duty during the Civil War. She was

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Speaker 1: also the first woman to receive a Congressional Medal of Honor.

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Speaker 1: And although she'd treat anyone who needed help, Walker was

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Speaker 1: officially on the Union side. So for this podcast, we're

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Speaker 1: gonna switch things up a little bit and talk about

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Speaker 1: a prominent Confederate doctor, doctor Hunter Holmes McGuire, who we've

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Speaker 1: tried to be diverse with all of the Civil War episodes.

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Speaker 1: We've been balanced, yeah, showing showing different races, different sexes,

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Speaker 1: perspective sides of the war. So yeah, well, like you said,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about Dr Hunter Holmes McGuire are

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Speaker 1: today a Confederate doctor, And of course McGuire didn't have

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Speaker 1: any trouble actually becoming an army doctor like Mary Walker

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Speaker 1: did simply because of his gender, but he did face

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Speaker 1: some challenges that were pretty unique to doctors of the Confederacy,

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Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about that a lot more later.

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Speaker 1: But the thing that's really interesting about McGuire is that

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Speaker 1: you almost can't talk about him without discussing his most

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Speaker 1: famous patient, Lieutenant General Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson. Yes, hence

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Speaker 1: the title of this podcast, and Jackson was of course

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Speaker 1: one of the most accomplished and revered officers of the

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Speaker 1: Confederate Army, and McGuire treated him after he received his

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Speaker 1: final battle wounds and was with him throughout his final

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Speaker 1: illness and his death because of Jackson's prominence in the

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Speaker 1: circumstances surrounding his final days, though many modern historians and

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Speaker 1: physicians in fact have continued to speculate about the true

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Speaker 1: cause of death involved here and have examined and really

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Speaker 1: re examined the treatment that he received. So we're going

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Speaker 1: to focus on that particular moment in Dr McGuire's career,

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Speaker 1: Jackson's death, but we're going to start by telling you

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Speaker 1: how McGuire became a Confederate Army doctor in the first place.

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Speaker 1: This episode really is about him so McGuire was born

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Speaker 1: October eleventh, eighteen thirty five, in Winchester, Virginia, and he

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Speaker 1: seemed to grow up with a love for and a

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Speaker 1: strong interest in medicine, largely because his father, Hugh H. McGuire,

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Speaker 1: was a physician, so it sort of ran in the family.

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Speaker 1: McGuire actually used to join his dad on house calls

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Speaker 1: when he was just a kid, really witnessing the profession

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Speaker 1: firsthand from a young age. And McGuire's father actually became

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Speaker 1: dean of Winchester Medical College and a professor of surgery there,

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Speaker 1: and McGuire ended up doing part of his medical training

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Speaker 1: there too. After graduating from there in eighteen fifty five,

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Speaker 1: McGuire went to Philadelphia to study medicine at both the

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Speaker 1: University of Pennsylvania and Jefferson Medical College, which was considered

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Speaker 1: one of the best med schools around before the war.

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Speaker 1: And when you look into it a little bit, you'll

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Speaker 1: see the different sources have slightly differing dates and opinions

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Speaker 1: about what degrees McGuire received where and to what extent

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Speaker 1: he took courses, but we don't do know that he

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Speaker 1: did go there. He soon fell ill, though, and had

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Speaker 1: to return to Winchester for a little while to convalesce.

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Speaker 1: He stayed around there for a couple of years and

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Speaker 1: taught as professor of anatomy at Winchester Medical College, but

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Speaker 1: still had that itch to further his medical education a

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Speaker 1: little bit, so he went back to Philadelphia by eighteen

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Speaker 1: fifty eight and attended Jefferson Medical College again. Um, but

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Speaker 1: it was well McGuire was studying there in eighteen fifty

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Speaker 1: nine that abolitionist John Brown rated the US Armory and

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Speaker 1: Arsenal at Harpersbury, Virginia. And UM, I know lots of

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Speaker 1: you guys suggest this topic to us, and many, uh

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Speaker 1: guess who have studied U s history are familiar with it.

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Speaker 1: But Brown was trying to get weapons to start an

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Speaker 1: armed slave revault, but his plan failed when he was caught.

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Speaker 1: So Brown was tried and hanged for treason. But a

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Speaker 1: lot of Northern abolitionists really saw him as a martyr

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Speaker 1: kind of a hero for the movement. So the situation

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Speaker 1: really highlighted the philosophical differences between the North and South,

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Speaker 1: and that was reflected in what was going on among

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Speaker 1: the medical students in Philadelphia. This was just to give

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Speaker 1: you an idea, like a really really big current events

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Speaker 1: story for them at the time. But by that December

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine, the Northern medical students, because of John Brown,

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Speaker 1: because of other things going on in the country, UM

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Speaker 1: and the Southern medical students were starting to get into

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Speaker 1: confrontations with each other, and the Southern students got to

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Speaker 1: the point where they didn't really feel safe at school anymore.

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Speaker 1: So McGuire worked to arrange for all of the Southern

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Speaker 1: medical students who wanted to get out of Philadelphia to

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Speaker 1: transfer to the Medical College of Virginia in Richmond, and

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Speaker 1: the school agreed to take them on, accepted all of

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Speaker 1: their course credits for Jefferson, you know, just really smooth

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Speaker 1: transition for everybody, And several hundred students took that deal

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Speaker 1: that McGuire arranged, and McGuire ended up getting a degree

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Speaker 1: from Virginia Medical College as well in eighteen sixty and

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Speaker 1: he taught and did more coursework for a little while

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Speaker 1: after that, spending some time in New Orleans, but eventually

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Speaker 1: returning to Winchester when state started to secede from the Union.

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Speaker 1: According to an article by John Hanks in The American Surgeon,

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Speaker 1: it's not that McGuire was really pro slavery, but he

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Speaker 1: felt a very strong allegiance to his home state. So

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Speaker 1: when the war broke out in eighteen sixty one, he

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Speaker 1: offered his services to the Confederacy, and they really needed him.

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Speaker 1: According to Hanks, some estimates suggests that only twenty seven

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Speaker 1: Southern doctors had surgical experience before the war, and McGuire

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Speaker 1: was one of them, and he had something else going

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Speaker 1: for him to In addition to that, McGuire had a

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Speaker 1: lot of experience moving through both Southern and Northern society.

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Speaker 1: You know, he could interact with different sets of people,

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Speaker 1: and at a very young age. He was only about

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Speaker 1: twenty five or twenty six years old at this time,

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Speaker 1: he had already gotten tons of education, tons of experience.

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Speaker 1: He'd worked as a professor of surgery, so he just

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Speaker 1: had the best resume you could ask for for for

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Speaker 1: this position. So McGuire was commissioned as a surgeon in

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Speaker 1: May of eighteen sixty one, and his first assignment was

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Speaker 1: near Winchester with the Army of the Shenandoah, which was

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Speaker 1: under the command of Lieutenant General Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson

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Speaker 1: at the time. An article by Joe D. Haynes in

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Speaker 1: America Civil War has kind of a funny description of

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Speaker 1: their first meeting. Apparently, the first time McGuire presented himself

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Speaker 1: to Jackson in eighteen sixty one, Jackson just kind of

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Speaker 1: stared at him and then sent him away. McGuire eventually

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Speaker 1: did get orders appointing him a surgeon in the Confederate Army,

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Speaker 1: but it was several days after that. So later on,

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Speaker 1: after the two got to know each other a little better,

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Speaker 1: McGuire asked Jackson why his appointment hadn't happened immediately, and

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Speaker 1: Jackson said, quote, you looked so young. I sent to

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Speaker 1: Richmond to see if there was some mistake. I wouldn't

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Speaker 1: want Stonwall Jackson to give me a cold look. I

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Speaker 1: don't think I would either. After that initial bump, though,

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Speaker 1: Jackson came to really respect McGuire as a physician, a colleague,

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Speaker 1: and some sources suggest as even a friend. I mean,

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Speaker 1: if you look at both their lives, they did seem

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Speaker 1: to have a few things in common. Even though Jackson,

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Speaker 1: who was born in eighteen twenty four, was many years

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Speaker 1: McGuire senior. They were both from the Virginia area, and

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Speaker 1: they both got involved in the war for similar reasons.

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Speaker 1: A desire to defend their homes, something you kind of

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Speaker 1: seen a lot of Virginians in the Civil War, that's true.

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Speaker 1: Another thing they had in common is that they were

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Speaker 1: both educators, or they had been educators before the raid

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Speaker 1: at Harper's Ferry. Jackson had been living this relatively quiet

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Speaker 1: life as an instructor at the Virginia Military Academy, which

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Speaker 1: I never knew before. I didn't either. I mean, you

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Speaker 1: just know the stan Wall legendary stuff, even if you

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Speaker 1: think you kind of know about him. But McGuire really

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Speaker 1: proved himself to Jackson early on after the First Battle

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Speaker 1: of Manassas, when Jackson was shot in the left middle

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Speaker 1: finger and the physician the general first went to wanted

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Speaker 1: to amputate the finger. Jackson managed to sort of sneak

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Speaker 1: off from that doctor and get a second opinion from McGuire,

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Speaker 1: who was able to successfully treat the wound and save

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Speaker 1: the fingers. So, you know, even if they're both from Virginia,

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Speaker 1: they have these things in common. You think that would

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Speaker 1: be a good bond to establish with your patient, and

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Speaker 1: it did so. Jackson was impressed, and when he took

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Speaker 1: the command of the Army of the Valley district. McGuire

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Speaker 1: became his medical director, and the general wasn't the only

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Speaker 1: one who held McGuire in really high regard. The doctor

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Speaker 1: was renowned not only for his surgical ability, but for

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Speaker 1: his logistical and organizational skills as well. According to Hanks,

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Speaker 1: McGuire was pretty much doing what the best doctors on

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Speaker 1: the Union side were doing, but he was doing it

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Speaker 1: with a lot less. Although the Confederate Army had ample

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Speaker 1: medical supplies when the war started, as it dragged on,

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Speaker 1: the supply really diminished. Basically, they had to rely on

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Speaker 1: seizing Union medical supplies in order to get what they

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Speaker 1: needed to It was one of the unique challenges of

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Speaker 1: being a Confederate doctor. And I think that's so interesting too,

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Speaker 1: sort of an added twists to work that you have

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Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, it's more than just your skill or

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Speaker 1: the training you've had, it's what do you have at

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Speaker 1: your disposal? How can you how can you make it work?

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Speaker 1: So one of McGuire's biggest challenges, however, wasn't just making

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Speaker 1: sure they could get supplies, how he could treat people.

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Speaker 1: It came in the spring of eighteen sixty three, when

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Speaker 1: Confederate troops confronted the Union Army at Chancellorsville, Virginia, and

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Speaker 1: prior to this, the Confederate Army had been doing pretty well.

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Speaker 1: They had had some victories at Manassas and Fredericksburg in

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Speaker 1: eighteen sixty two, and Jackson had seemed to pretty much

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Speaker 1: own the Shenandoah Valley during the first couple of years

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Speaker 1: of the war. But when the Union Army advanced on

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Speaker 1: Chancellor Bill, things didn't look very good. They outnumber the

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Speaker 1: Confederates two to one, and they had way more splies,

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Speaker 1: way more artillery. But amazingly, the Confederates managed to get

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Speaker 1: the upper hand when Jackson pulled off one of his

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Speaker 1: trademark flanking maneuvers and blean out that you could explain flanking,

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Speaker 1: I think I can a little bit. I'm no expert,

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Speaker 1: but flanking basically meant taking troops on a longer encircling

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Speaker 1: march around an enemy rather than attacking head on. Attacking

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Speaker 1: directly would have been suicide in many cases because they

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Speaker 1: had fewer men and the larger artillery on the other

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Speaker 1: side too would come into account. Exactly, so Jackson had

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Speaker 1: become known for preferring this flanking strategy to attacking directly.

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Speaker 1: He and General Robert E. Lee had realized on May

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Speaker 1: one of that year that the Union Army had left

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Speaker 1: its western flank open, so they saw their window of

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Speaker 1: opportunity and they decided to attack from there, and by

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Speaker 1: the evening of May second, Jackson and his men were

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Speaker 1: doing just that. They caught the Union Army completely off

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Speaker 1: guard and dealt them a pretty serious blow. But Jackson

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Speaker 1: wanted to take that a step farther and cut off

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Speaker 1: the Union Army's retreat and try to destroy them completely.

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Speaker 1: So Stanwell rode ahead with a group of troops to

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Speaker 1: see what the situation was, kind of a recon group,

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Speaker 1: and see if cutting off the retreat would actually be possible.

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Speaker 1: But because it was dark, it was a really dangerous

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Speaker 1: time to be beyond your own lines, And sure enough,

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Speaker 1: the Party did end up surprising the eighteenth North Carolina Regiment,

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Speaker 1: which of course mistook them for Federal cavalry being beyond

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Speaker 1: their lines and opened fire. Jackson got shot in the

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Speaker 1: right hand and then two places on his left arm,

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Speaker 1: and it is, of course one of the most famous

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Speaker 1: friendly fire incidents of the war. And that's what we're

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Speaker 1: gonna be talking about for pretty much the rest of

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Speaker 1: the party. I mean, some people see it as a

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Speaker 1: real turning point. I mean, if they had actually been

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Speaker 1: able to cut off the retreat, a lot of people

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Speaker 1: think what would have happened and just losing Jackson too, Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: But Jackson managed to stay on his horse, Little Sorrel,

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Speaker 1: until his aids helped him down, and the General was

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Speaker 1: then carried on a litter to a receiving area west

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Speaker 1: of the front lines. But the litter was dropped twice

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Speaker 1: on the way there, once because the bear got shot,

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Speaker 1: and again because a bear tripped and fell, and both

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Speaker 1: times Jackson hit the ground pretty hard from it can

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Speaker 1: celerable heights, so just adding to his injury. McGuire met

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Speaker 1: him at the receiving area right away and said, quote,

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Speaker 1: I hope you're not badly hurt, General, But he could

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Speaker 1: see right away that Jackson's clothes were soaked with blood

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Speaker 1: and was displaying all the classic signs of hemorrhagic shock,

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Speaker 1: cold hands, clammy skin, pale lips and face, and it

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Speaker 1: didn't look at at all. So McGuire readjusted the bandage

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Speaker 1: on Jackson's arm to try to kind of slow the bleeding,

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Speaker 1: and he gave him morphine and whiskey and they transported

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Speaker 1: him to a nearby field hospital. And here's how McGuire's

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Speaker 1: writings described Jackson's wounds. There were two wounds in his arm.

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Speaker 1: The first and most serious was about three inches below

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Speaker 1: the shoulder joint, the ball dividing the main artery and

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Speaker 1: fracturing the bone. The second, with several inches in length

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Speaker 1: of all, having entered the outside of the forearm and

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Speaker 1: inch below the elbow, came out upon the opposite side,

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Speaker 1: just about the wrist. So after examining him there, McGuire

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Speaker 1: realized he was going to have to amputate that left arm,

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Speaker 1: and he asked Jackson whether that was okay. Jackson replied, yes, certainly,

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Speaker 1: Dr McGuire, do for me whatever you think best, And

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Speaker 1: when McGuire gave him the chloroform before operating, Jackson even

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Speaker 1: said what an infinite blessing before he became unconscious. And

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Speaker 1: again in his writings, McGuire later wrote that throughout the

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Speaker 1: whole of the operation and until all the dressings were applied,

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Speaker 1: Jackson continued insensible and the surgery seemed to be successful,

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Speaker 1: and Jackson seemed to be doing really well the next day,

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Speaker 1: though he did complain of a pain on his right side,

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Speaker 1: So that was sort of foreshadowing things to come, as

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Speaker 1: we'll see. A major came to receive instructions from him,

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Speaker 1: and Jackson appeared to kind of know at this point

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Speaker 1: that he wasn't in any state of mind to give

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Speaker 1: any instructions. He said, quote, I don't know. I can't

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Speaker 1: tell say to General Stewart. He must do what he

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Speaker 1: thinks best. On May the five, General Lease sent instructions

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Speaker 1: to move Jackson to a station that was twenty six

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Speaker 1: miles away. Basically, Lee didn't want jack Since so close

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Speaker 1: to the battlefront because he was afraid federal troops might

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Speaker 1: capture him. According to Haynes article, Jackson said quote, I'm

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Speaker 1: not afraid of them. I've always been kind to their wounded,

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Speaker 1: so I'm sure they'll be kind to me. But Jackson

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Speaker 1: McGuire did end up making that bumpy long ride together

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Speaker 1: in an ambulance, and Jackson was taken to a place

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Speaker 1: called Chandler House, and he seemed to be doing well

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Speaker 1: initially after he was relocated. He slept well the night

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Speaker 1: he arrived, he was eating well, He was even cheerful

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Speaker 1: at times. So McGuire was optimistic enough so that he

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Speaker 1: actually allowed himself some sleep after being awake for about

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Speaker 1: three days straight. That second night, though, at about one

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Speaker 1: am on May seven, the Jackson woke up nauseated and

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Speaker 1: he had a pain on his right side again. By

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Speaker 1: the time McGuire woke up, he saw Jackson's condition had

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Speaker 1: gotten much, much worse. The McGuire diagnosed the condition as

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Speaker 1: pneumonia that had resulted from a contusion in his lung

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Speaker 1: that had been caused by the general's fault, you know,

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Speaker 1: when he was being carried back from behind enemy lines.

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Speaker 1: But from that point on, the General's condition just continued

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Speaker 1: to get worse and worse. He was exhausted, his breathing

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Speaker 1: was labored, he was in a lot of pain, and

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Speaker 1: McGuire called in several other doctors to consult. You know,

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Speaker 1: he wasn't hogging his patient here. But no matter what

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Speaker 1: they did, Jackson just got weaker. And Jackson said to

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Speaker 1: McGuire at this point, quote, I see from the number

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Speaker 1: of physicians that you think my condition dangerous. Maybe an

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Speaker 1: attempt for a little stonewall joke here towards the end,

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Speaker 1: or maybe just an astute observation. But by Friday, Jackson's

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Speaker 1: wife Anna and his one month old daughter came to visit,

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Speaker 1: and there are several eyewitness accounts of how Stonewall spent

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Speaker 1: time with his little daughter, trying to hold her hand

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Speaker 1: in his injured one. And by Sunday, May Temph, his

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Speaker 1: wife was weeping and telling Jackson that the doctors had

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Speaker 1: said there was no hope and um. After that he

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Speaker 1: asked to see McGuire. Yeah, and Jackson asked McGuire. At

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Speaker 1: that point, he wanted to know straight up what was

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Speaker 1: going on, So he said, quote, doctor Anna informs me

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Speaker 1: that you have told her that I'm to die today,

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Speaker 1: is it so? And McGuire confirms that, yes, that's the case.

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Speaker 1: So Jackson kind of turns his eyes towards the ceiling

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Speaker 1: and after a couple of moments, he says, quote, very good,

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Speaker 1: very good, It is all right. Apparently he had wanted

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Speaker 1: to die on a Sunday because he was really religious,

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Speaker 1: which is another thing that I didn't know about Stonewall Jackson.

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Speaker 1: I didn't know that either. But Jackson did in fact

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Speaker 1: die that day, and at the end he seemed delirious,

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Speaker 1: and at times he would talk as if he was

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Speaker 1: somewhere else, maybe the battlefield or the mess table, and

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Speaker 1: the last moments of his are are pretty amazing what

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Speaker 1: was going through his head, and those have of course

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Speaker 1: been recorded so we can get a little picture of it.

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Speaker 1: They're described as thus, here's what he said, order a

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Speaker 1: p hill to prepare for action, past the infantry to

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Speaker 1: the front, rapidly tell major hawks. And that sentence was

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Speaker 1: left unfinished. And then in his writings, McGuire notes that

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Speaker 1: Jackson kind of smiled and this expression of relief kind

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Speaker 1: of came over his face, and then he said, quote,

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Speaker 1: let us cross over the river and rest under the

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Speaker 1: shade of the trees. And then without any sort of struggle,

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Speaker 1: he just passed away. So now comes the modern reevaluation

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Speaker 1: part of the podcast. As we hinted at, modern physicians

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Speaker 1: and historians have tried to reevaluate McGuire's diagnosis of Jackson's

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Speaker 1: final illness, which as we mentioned was pneumonia. Um McGuire

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Speaker 1: didn't have his original notes from that period though they

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Speaker 1: were confiscated after the war, but he did reconstruct them

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Speaker 1: three years later. However, he didn't record all the observations

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Speaker 1: he based his diagnosis on. That's why this is kind

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Speaker 1: of a story that's open to a little bit of speculation. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: a lot of his observations were more like a friend

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Speaker 1: would make the whole recounting of his last words and

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Speaker 1: saying things like then without pain or the least struggle,

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Speaker 1: his spirit passed from earth to the God who gave it,

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Speaker 1: I mean kind as exactly than a doctor writing. So

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Speaker 1: some agree with McGuire's take that pneumonia was the cause

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Speaker 1: of death, but there are certain things that make people

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Speaker 1: a little suspicious of this. Nowhere in McGuire's writings or

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Speaker 1: in the couple of other writings, there are about this

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Speaker 1: is coughing mentioned, for instance, and that would be a

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Speaker 1: sign or a symptom of pneumonia. Others, however, think that

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Speaker 1: he might have died from a pulmonary embolism or a

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Speaker 1: blood clot in the lung. The theory hears that the

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Speaker 1: clots developed in the stump of the left arm, dislodged

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Speaker 1: and then ended up in the pulmonary arteries. Some still

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Speaker 1: others think that there was an unspecified injury to another

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Speaker 1: organ or some other type of infection that led to

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Speaker 1: his death. Yeah, that pain on the right sign exactly.

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Speaker 1: As for McGuire, though he stayed with the Confederate Army,

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Speaker 1: until the end of a war, and afterward he went

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Speaker 1: to Richmond, established a medical practice there and started teaching

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Speaker 1: at the Medical College of Virginia. In eighteen sixty six,

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Speaker 1: he married a woman named Mary Stewart, and they had

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Speaker 1: nine children together. And McGuire really did a lot for

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Speaker 1: the city of Richmond over the course of his lifetime. Besides,

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Speaker 1: I mean widely recognized for his medical talents, he incidentally

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Speaker 1: had a large practice in obstetrics and gynecology. He also

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Speaker 1: helped establish a new medical college in Virginia, the University

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Speaker 1: College of Medicine, and he did a lot to make

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Speaker 1: sure the poor and indigent in the area had medical care.

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Speaker 1: He had a number of prestigious positions and appointments, including

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Speaker 1: the president of the American Medical Association in eighteen ninety three.

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Speaker 1: Don't you think it's interesting too that he got into

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Speaker 1: obstetrics and gynecology from being a military field doctor, where

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Speaker 1: that would not be in your day to day work

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Speaker 1: at all, after doing all that trauma type surgery. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think that's a really interesting medical about faith. But

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Speaker 1: McGuire died in Richmond September nineteen hundred, several months after

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Speaker 1: he'd had a stroke, and in nineteen o four, the

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Speaker 1: state of Virginia erected a statue of McGuire near one

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Speaker 1: of Jackson on the grounds of Richmond's Capital. So appropriate

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Speaker 1: there to have the doctor still tending to the general. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it is appropriate, almost appointed, I think. Um. But that's

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Speaker 1: all we have in this installment of our Civil War

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Speaker 1: mini series today. But if you guys want to suggest

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Speaker 1: topics for future episodes, you can definitely write to us. UM.

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Speaker 1: We know you guys communicate with this a lot, and

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Speaker 1: in the podcast a War we won. We won the

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Speaker 1: hate to say I'm surprised, but I was a little

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Speaker 1: bit surprised. So yeah, we are super thrilled. First that

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Speaker 1: to send me a text message when she found out

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