Civility

         As a young man, I had in my mind that the men of medicine were both well respected and paid. Only now, at the end of my career, do I believe I have finally reached those benchmarks. Be that as it may, the aforementioned was my thought and, with the time and expense of proper schooling out of the question, I set off in the last year of the war between the states to put into motion the wheels that would bring me to my present destination.

        I left my home in Mississippi at the age of 19 to join in the fight for states’ rights. I am not saying that I joined the Confederate Army and went to war. Indeed I did not and it was not my patriotism that drove my actions. My goals I have written but my plan required the anonymity that the western edge of Kentucky provided. Once there, I sold the few goods I owned to acquire a ragged CSA uniform and hire the most remote tailor I could find. From the scraps I brought, the man concocted for me something a bit better than the common foot soldier’s issue - stitching into the lapel the symbol for the medical corps. With this uniform in my bedroll, I cast about to find a proper horse and spent my last solid dollar on outfitting it in such a way that it might be mistaken for a military mount. Once I thought I was far enough from town, I assumed the guise and bearing of that medical man I wished to be and looked for the smallest battle that might afford me the opportunity for a battlefield commission.

        I read of two battles along the way. Leaflets posted in the villages I passed through were desperate calls to arms - but the battles, I judged from the rhetoric, would be too involved for me to pass into unnoticed. I was seeking instead some skirmish where a few scrapes might be bandaged and a grateful commander might bestow a rank and title on me that I could not otherwise claim. As I rode, for nearly three weeks, I gathered a pair of companions, both of which were named Tom.

        Tom Jons was a likable enough fellow, if a bit on the unwashed side. He had a quick temper but it was not often evidenced so, he was normally good company. The other was Thomas Night. As these are different times than those were I will simply mention for the record that Mr. Night was a colored man. I will further state that the fact that he was colored in no way effected the fact that he was a man. He was a loyal friend, a clever companion and I begged the lord for his soul on the day they buried him. Further, though my salvation is still a matter of question, I am positive beyond a certainty that, when the rapture comes, Mr. Night will find Saint Peter a willing doorman. That being said, and these times being far more enlightened than those, I will now return to my story and never more mention the various shades of my friends.

        I had only one joke at the expense of the men who traveled with me. Mr. Jons had a horse, if you could call it that, and Mr. Night would trade off riding behind one or the other of us. As we were nigh onto the frontier of the country in those days there was always some talk of fearsome Indian encounters. This is where the witticism I have mentioned came into play. When one or the other would ask if I worried about a possible savage attack... I would respond that I was well protected by having my Tom-Toms ever by my side. I realize that it is not much of a jest, but we were hard pressed for humor in those days and I will stand by my quip as one of the funniest we heard in all our travels.

        I am unsure what day it fell on, but it was very near the war’s end. I am likewise unsure if the battle happened in Ohio or if we were still in Kentucky. The Toms were actually keen on getting into the war and, by virtue only of the fact that I wore something that looked like a uniform, they expected that I was leading them back to the front lines.

        This brings up the question of the association we two had with Mr. Night. I know I said I would no further mention it but, being of his color, it does leave one to wonder just why he would be heading for the war on the side of the Gray. Honestly, and even though this was surely what the war was mostly about, neither I nor the other Tom put that two and two together until much later... and I am not sure that he ever did.

        Whatever day it was and whatever the reasons, we could now hear the occasional blast and echo of an altercation we were approaching. Before any of us had thought ourselves in the slightest danger - we were in the middle of a small clearing between exhausted units from both sides. The Toms were talking and, just as I motioned to them for quiet a hot round of lead tore through my uniform and threw me from my horse. In an instant the Toms slipped behind their horse and reigned him to his knees. None of us were sure where the shot had come from and the boys had the unfortunate luck to place their animal in such a way that both sets of troops had a clear shot at them. Where they had thought to use the horse as a shield, they had done the exact opposite. In less than a minute we were all writhing on the ground and one of the horses was bleeding to death.

        When first I knew that I had been hit, I made up my mind that I would tough it out, put on a brave face and go on as if I were invincible. I think this may be the thought that goes through the minds of many men in the instant after a wound is got in war. It lasted for less that a minute. The bullet that took me came dastardly from behind and tore it’s way through the structure, I have since learned, is known as the Rotator Cuff. I assure you that there are few more painful structures that a body can have punctured and twisted by a passing shard of metal that has so little chance of killing you. While I was screaming, my arm hung limp at my side, flopping as I rolled over like a dead fish. Not exactly the perfect start of a career as a surgeon.

        Both the Toms had been hit from behind as well. The Sons of the South were so incensed by the cowardice of the attack against us that they quit their barricades and charged the Union troops... killing three and leaving one wounded behind as they retreated into the bush. As the Southerners returned to the field to claim their own wounded, a detail hovered over the Toms and me. My career began as one of the young soldiers cried, “Glory be... Colonel!  One of these is a Doctor!”

        To hear me tell this you might think that I’m recalling a charge on Gettysburg or some angle of Appomattox. Trust me it was nothing of the sort. It is an unnamed killing of otherwise useful people in a forest glen too small to be given a name. The total number of boots on that field could never have been more than 50 and had there been a third army - with only a number of unarmed civilians equal to the number of cards in a poker deck... they would have been the ones to win the day.

        The feeling came back in my hand after just a few minutes in a sling. When it did I wished it had remained numb a might longer. I directed the care for the Toms and judged that the wounded Union boy was not long for this world. Before midday he proved me right. Mr. Night’s wound was a clean shot through his leg and his wrist was broken when he fell. Mr. Jon’s wound was a bit more serious as he was shot through the belly and was losing blood and another fluid I couldn’t then identify.

        It is at this moment that I began to understand the nature of the battle, the nature of our real dangers and why there was more at stake for Mr. Night than any of us. Knowing his wound was less severe, I chose to treat him first anyway. When I did several of the men in gray uniforms looked at me askance... informing me without speaking that this war was about something more than me being able to put ‘m.d.’ behind my name. With grudging assistance I bound Thomas’ wound, set is wrist and called for him a horse. Now the hostile looks turned to words and, for the first time, Mr. Night perceived his danger... this is the exact moment when I realized there was more than rock salt in my head.

        I spun around on the grumbling men and gave them a look like acid. I explained that Mr. Jons was dying from a tumorous lesion and that a medicament only available in the nearest large town to the north could help him. Pleading in an angry voice for the four children Jon’s would orphan by dying, I commanded again that Mr. Night be given a horse. None of this was true in the least but there was no one who could question my medical judgement. Breaking the tension at an unexpected angle a young man stepped forward and offered to run that errand, as he was strong, uninjured and had the fastest mount. With my bloodied left hand I pushed the young man down and motioned for Thomas to take his horse. As he did I screamed at the Confederates mobbing toward me: How far north did any one of them think they would get?  Yankee troops would massacre anyone who tried to head that direction... but a loyal slave could ride through the northern lines without a care or permission. Even though the North claimed to be fighting for the rights of the blacks they certainly paid little attention to their desires or activities for that matter. The only one who could get through the lines and safely return was this friend of the dying man who had the good fortune to be a Negro.

        Thomas rode out that day and I did not see him until five years later on a trip to Pittsburgh where he had a job as a coach driver. I kept in touch with him until he died last year from some sort of sickness. His wife and sons miss him dearly.

        Tom, on the other hand, died a few days later... not from his belly shot, but from an infection in a cut on his inner thigh that I never saw until his last day. Had I known of it, I might have treated him differently... but, knowing the increased severity of the situation, would I have knowingly sacrificed the life of one Tom for the other?  Gratefully, that is a question I shall never have to answer.

        I, as you know, have been a Doctor ever since and have slowly learned the practice of medicine. Through no fault of my own I have never lost another patient, have been honored with many degrees and titles and retire today with even this last bit of possible folly off my chest.

        The thing I learned that day is a skill you’d be well advised to cultivate in yourself. It is the basic rule of triage: the patient in the most immediate danger of losing their life must be treated first.

        I would also caution you to consider that, sometimes, the most visible wound is not the most life threatening.

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[Barry!]

Will that do Mr. LaSalle?