Scott McGaugh > Quotes

“As warfare evolves, the wounded soldier lies on the battlefield still, desperately hopeful that someone will race toward enemy fire, slide to a stop, and say, “It’s okay, I’ve got you.” Every word of encouragement and care is an echo of Jonathan Letterman’s legacy.”
― Scott McGaugh, Surgeon in Blue: Jonathan Letterman, the Civil War Doctor Who Pioneered Battlefield Care

“Men endured the long winters at night in the dim light of a candle stuck on the end of an upright bayonet”
― Scott McGaugh, Surgeon in Blue: Jonathan Letterman, the Civil War Doctor Who Pioneered Battlefield Care

“The world’s armies had no organization for battlefield evacuation. Some had tried, such as the French, who in 1859 relied on military musicians as stretcher bearers. In America, the concept of corpsmen and medics didn’t exist. A soldier relied on his comrades to possibly drop their rifles and staunch his bleeding or push his intestines back into his lacerated abdomen.”
― Scott McGaugh, Surgeon in Blue: Jonathan Letterman, the Civil War Doctor Who Pioneered Battlefield Care

“Horrific suffering by the wounded and dying may have been inevitable, but the chaotic, poorly organized battlefield evacuation and inadequately coordinated post-battle care that exacerbated and cruelly prolonged it could not be allowed to continue.”
― Scott McGaugh, Surgeon in Blue: Jonathan Letterman, the Civil War Doctor Who Pioneered Battlefield Care

“Yet it is also true that through the horrors of the battlefield, military medicine has validated and sometimes pioneered advances in medicine.”
― Scott McGaugh, Surgeon in Blue: Jonathan Letterman, the Civil War Doctor Who Pioneered Battlefield Care

“A surgeon might be hoping that the next shipment of medical supplies would be sent to his hospital. A wounded soldier might be wondering whether enough stretcher bearers would be sent into his stand of trees so that he would be found in his nest of rocks before he bled to death. A stretcher bearer might wonder if he’d have to search for wounded through the night, his lantern making him an easy target for enemy sharpshooters. Nearly all of them depended on a medical director they had never met and who had never endured the heat of battle command.”
― Scott McGaugh, Surgeon in Blue: Jonathan Letterman, the Civil War Doctor Who Pioneered Battlefield Care