Civil War Meds

I couldn't image fighting in any war but especially the Civil War. The brutal Civil War saw many advances in medicine but also the most deaths of any American war. In class when we discussed how soldiers were amputated and saved, it seemed painful. The decision to die or cut of limbs must have been incredible to deal with. In prior wars if you got shot in most places you slowly died and there wasn't much that doctors could do. Now, in the Civil War there was hope for shot soldiers and led to a new found importance for battle Field doctors for the saving of lives. I think the hardest thing to imagine is not having real powerful pain killers during the procedures to amputate arms and legs. The pain that these people had to experience must have been so excruciating that the choice to live or die may have been thought about. The Civil War was powerful for its growth in medicine advances but also as a growth of a united country. Its hard to think about our country if the Confederates were able to separate from the United States. Were would we be now? Were would Florida be now?