ARMY OF THE POTOMAC ENEMY #9: "SAWBONES REB"
The picture that accompanied this excerpt was one I clipped from The Civil War News. It pictures a hefty Reb surgeon leaning over a injured patient, his hand on his kneecap. Next to him an assistant feels for a pulse, and in the background a youngish Reb is pouring something from a bottle. The whole thing looked vaguely Frankensteinian to me. I'll try to find the original to scan. - Jonah
Woe to the hapless Federal soldier left wounded on the field of a Confederate battle victory! Not only is he injured and in pain, but worse, will probably be looked after by the tender mercies of that Southern monster "Sawbones Reb" and his team of murderous butchers.
After a confrontation with Federal forces the Confederates send out their hospital stewards to collect the wounded. The Reb wounded go to the C.S.A. Surgeons Corps, who are generally well-respected and learned practitioners in the art of medicine. The unlucky wounded Federals, however, are brought to Sawbones Reb.
At the surgeon's tent he has his bearded accomplice "Pulse Reb" (shown at right) check for signs of life. Having ascertained that the patient is still alive, "Coma Reb" (shown in the middle) administers a slow-acting poison composed of arsenic and bella-donna in a concentrated sulfuric acid solution which preserves the soldier's life but causes him to go into a deep coma. Sawbones Reb then begins his horrible business.
First Sawbones Reb feels his victim's arms and then the legs at the knee. Probing skillfully through bone, viscera and muscle Sawbones Reb decides where the optimal cut will take place and then pulls out his set of special-issue "ginsu" scalpels and removes the poor soldier's arms and legs!
Next, this unholy Sawbones Reb packs the limbs in a preservative skillygallee solution and sends the limbs to the Rebel hospitals, where the surgeons replace the wounded arms and legs of Rebs with fresh replacements from the tent of Sawbones Reb. After a short convalescence the Frankenstein Rebs are reunited with their regiments and the Confederate war effort continues! Sawbones Reb must be stopped! All Army of the Potomac personnel are hereby authorized to burn any Reb hospital tents they encounter in an effort to cease these horrors!
