Her first officer, First Lieutenant John McIntosh Kell later remembered: “Assistant Surgeon Llewellyn was at his post, but the table and patient on it had been swept away from him by an 11-inch shell, which made an aperture that was fast filling with water. Such was the fate of a doctor on the CSS Alabama. Surgeons could be struck by shells as easily as their patients or legitimate combatants. Indeed, those same medical professionals might end up saving the life of an enemy if they wound up under their knife.īut in naval combat you fired at ships: impersonal and imprecise. Not only out of humanity, but also because they were not a threat. Surgeons and hospital stewards were largely spared if they appeared on the battlefield and the opposing side could identify them as medical professionals. Another is that there was no choosing individuals to target. A reliance on artillery as the main tool of warfare, rather than the more precise rifle, was a major factor. There was no truly safe zone aboard a ship. Naval warfare in the Civil War was, by its very nature, indiscriminate. Why did the Union Navy suffer more dead than wounded in combat when the opposite was true ashore? Sailors and marines, on the other hand, were more likely to die in combat than be wounded. However, soldiers were more than twice as likely to be wounded as killed. Navy and Marine Corps lost only 2.7% of its enlisted to combat deaths. Army was killed in combat throughout the Civil War. Masury, Library of Congress.īy percentage of enlisted, 6.5% of the U.S. While there are many reasons why sailors and marines were less likely to die of disease and combat than their comrades ashore, naval combat could be remarkably lethal. Navy and Marine Corps compared to the Army. In Part One of this series, I examined the low casualty rates of the U.S. Navy and Marine Casualties of the Civil War, Part 2 Posted on: June 9th, 2021 Museum members support scholarship like this.
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