After the battle at Philippi, James Edward Hanger, a 19 year-old Washington College sophomore and recruit in the Virginia infantry, became the war's first amputee when a Union surgeon removed his shattered right leg just below the hip. Returning home on a prisoner exchange, he developed an artificial limb - "the Hanger Leg." He patented it in 1863 and developed the company that still operates as Hanger Prosthetics & Orthotics. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
Jennifer David McDaid, "'How a One-Legged Rebel LIves' - Confederate Veterans and Artificial Limbs in Virginia," in Katherine Ott, David Serlin, and Steven Mihm, eds., Artificial Parts, Practical Lives: Modern Histories of Prosthetics (New York: New York University Press, 2002), 119.
Record Data
Date Certainty
Exact
Type
Battles/Soldiers