Okay, not really. But it was close.
The two of us went to the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in downtown Frederick, and even if the place hadn’t been air-conditioned, it still would’ve been pretty cool.
The only such facility of its kind (devoted, as it is, to the medical side of the War Between the States), the museum is an excellent way to get a glimpse of just what doctors—not to mention nurses, soldiers, and extended families—endured during the Civil War.
Judging by what we saw there, the fact that anyone came off the battlefield alive seems like a miracle.
“Just imagine how hot it must’ve been,” I said to Sam, as we looked at a lifelike display of an ambulance wagon on a battlefield.
Thinking back to how unbearable it’d felt just walking down Patrick Street in the thousand-percent humidity a few minutes earlier, I didn’t really have the hyperbole to describe to him how truly hellish the summertime battles must’ve seemed.
But, then, I didn’t need it.
“Look at all the feet!” said Sam, staring at an enlarged photo of amputated limbs piled high outside a Northern field hospital.
Though grainy, sepia-toned, and more than a century old, the horror of the shot wasn’t diminished one bit. Staring at it, I was glad my son is a fourth-grader. Despite the museum’s being open to visitors of all ages, I think some of the images displayed there are just too graphic for little kids.
Which is not to say the museum is in any way inappropriate. It isn’t.
But it does explore somber topics, everything from battlefield amputations to 19th-century dentistry (eek!), and I wouldn’t advise bringing children younger than seven or eight. Even rendered in black-and-white, some of the careworn images are horrendous.
The experience, however, can be profoundly moving.
So if you find yourself in downtown Frederick one of these days—with or without the kids—make a detour to the mid 1800s. You’ll be sobered, but you won’t be disappointed.
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