Medical Miracle

Medical Miracle (HM1874)

Location: Sperryville, VA 22740 Rappahannock County
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Country: United States of America
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N 38° 39.475', W 78° 13.662'

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Inscription

"A Chance in Twenty"

This building housed the medical office of Dr. William Amiss, whose brother Dr. Thomas Amiss practiced in Slate Mills and later in Page County. Together, the two men accomplished a medical achievement virtually unheard of during the Civil War.

Maj. Richard Snowden Andrews commanded Gen. Charles S. Winder's artillery during the Battle of Cedar Mountain a few miles south of Culpeper on August 9, 1862. An exploding Federal shell slashed through Andrew's right side, almost disemboweling him. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's surgeon, Dr. Hunter H. McGuire, declared Andrew's condition hopeless.

That evening, Drs. Thomas and William Amiss (31st and 50th Georgia Infantry, respectively) examined Andrews in a field hospital and concurred that the wound was mortal. Andrews retorted that "if you damned doctors would do something for me, I'd get well." Thomas Amiss joked that Andrews was - literally and figuratively - "full of all kinds of grit." The doctors washed the wound, reinserted Andrew's bowels into his abdominal cavity, and sewed up the enormous gash. Amazingly, peritonitis did not set in, and seven weeks later the "mortally wounded" Andrews hobbled about on crutches. He returned to duty but was again wounded during the Second Battle of Winchester on June 15, 1863. After he recovered, he was reassigned as an advisor to the German army. After the war, he resumed his career as an architect in Baltimore. For the remainder of his life (he died in 1903), he reveled in telling of his brush with death and exhibiting the huge scar left from the Amiss brothers' stitching. His recovery was so remarkable that his case is still sometimes mentioned in medical texts.
Details
HM NumberHM1874
Series This marker is part of the Virginia Civil War Trails series
Tags
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Placed ByVirginia Civil War Trails
Marker ConditionNo reports yet
Date Added Thursday, October 2nd, 2014 at 4:39am PDT -07:00
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Locationbig map
UTM (WGS84 Datum)17S E 741230 N 4282463
Decimal Degrees38.65791667, -78.22770000
Degrees and Decimal MinutesN 38° 39.475', W 78° 13.662'
Degrees, Minutes and Seconds38° 39' 28.50" N, 78° 13' 39.72" W
Driving DirectionsGoogle Maps
Area Code(s)540
Closest Postal AddressAt or near 26-498 Main St, Sperryville VA 22740, US
Alternative Maps Google Maps, MapQuest, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, MSR Maps, OpenCycleMap, MyTopo Maps, OpenStreetMap

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