Advances in military technology during the American Civil War, especially the invention of the rifled musket (which allowed for more accurate firing) and the Minié ball (a bullet with a cylindrical body and pointed convex nose that penetrated more deeply and could shatter bone), led to devastating wounds which often required amputation of a limb. Around 60,000 amputations were performed during the four years of the Civil War, amounting to three-quarters of all the surgical operations done during the war (Figg 1993). 

The objects and books used in this display highlight the tools and techniques used for those amputations. As a companion to the traveling exhibit Life and Limb: The Toll of the American Civil War from the National Library of Medicine, it demonstrates the grisly realities of the thousands of amputations that were done, on and off the battlefield, during the Civil War.