Bringing Peace in the Midst of War:

The Debate and Diplomacy of Medical Care in

Civil War

Kiesha Mundin

Individual Webpage

Junior Division
 Before I was born, my parents worked as registered nurses. My parents
told me many stories about the things they did during their entire career.
When I heard their stories, it inspired me to work in the medical field one
day, and to work on this project. One time, Mrs. Sermons gave our class a
handout of Theme and Topic Worksheet. It has many questions like “What
are your Interest, Career goals, and Hobbies.” When I filled it all out, I still
haven’t figured out the topic to do for my project. When I look at the topic
ideas, I found about a topic about Civil War Nursing and Hospital. I picked
this topic because I found Civil War an interesting period and I wanted to
learn more things about their medical techniques, and the important people
who worked in the medical field.

After I found my topic, Mrs. Sermon’s Advances Girls went to a

research field trip at the Gulf Coast Library. The Advanced Girls went to
Gulf Coast because they provided many Primary and Secondary Sources and
the librarian showed us some useful websites we can use for our project. One
of the books I used at Gulf Coast was the American Nursing: a History, by
Philip Arthur Kalisch and Beatrice Kalisch. This book provided much
information about the cases and the deaths occurred and the volunteered
nurses during the war. Also, our class spent some time working in the Bear
Lab. One of the sources I found was the “Health and Medicine: Civil War. It
was one of the most useful websites I used because it provided much
information bout the U.S. Sanitary Commission and also provided letters
about their experiences during the war.
After I’ve done my project on the Exhibit on 6th grade, and PowerPoint
in 7th grade, I decided to do something different and similar to my other
projects in the previous years. So, I decided to do my project on Webpage.
Mrs. Sermons also told us to make a Step Book, which is the rough draft of
our whole project. It includes the Thesis, Historical Background, The Main
Ideas, The Debate and Diplomacy, Impacts, The Significance, and the sketch
of our project.
 Because of Civil War, many important things had happened. Many
organizations were made, like the U.S. Sanitary Commission. Second, more
troops died because of diseases and infections than battlefield wounds. Also,
the Union side had more advantage than the Confederate side. One of the
Successes that occurred during the war is the medical corps increased in size,
improving techniques, and gained greater understanding in medicine and
diseases. Also, Chloroforms was used in operation to lessen pain. Many
diseases were never cured, so diseases were spread easily. About 360,000
deaths occurred in the Union Army, and 260,000 deaths in the Confederate
army. If all the hospitals weren’t there and volunteered medical corps wasn’t
there, many soldiers could’ve died in war.

Word Count: 500