Museum Civil War images featured in new exhibit at National Museum of American History

A new exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, “The Price of Freedom: Americans at War,” features 44 images of Civil War soldiers from the National Museum of Health and Medicine’s Otis Historical Archives. The exhibit demonstrates how war has shaped American history starting from the War of Independence in 1775 through America’s role today in Iraq.

The photos from the museum are of Civil War soldiers, mostly amputees and survivors of the bloodiest war in American history. The images show the graphic and painful results of battle, such as facial mutilation, loss of limbs, and permanent bullet wounds. The images are displayed on a cloth mural that demonstrates the human costs of the Civil War.

“The goal of this part of the exhibit was to show the human side of combat and its lingering effect in people's lives after the war," said David Allison, Ph.D., project director and chief curator of the exhibit.

In the exhibit, the mural is placed adjacent to a large tree stump that was removed from a battlefield in Virginia. The stump is torn and full of holes, showing the result of rifle bullets that took the lives of 2,000 soldiers and the damage that was caused. The combination of the tree and the collage of injured soldiers create an arresting image that further demonstrates the costs of war to humans and the environment.

The collage photos are from the museum’s Otis Historical Archives, which holds manuscripts, documents, archives, films, prints, slides, paintings, photographs, illustrations, and institutional records related to health and medicine. Material includes the records of the Army Medical Museum and the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Michael Rhode, archivist, and Tabitha Oglesby, assistant archivist, coordinated reproduction of the original photographs.

In addition to those images, the Smithsonian exhibition also features:

• George Washington’s sword and scabbard
• George Armstrong Custer’s buckskin coat
• the chairs used by Civil War generals Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant during the surrender ceremony at Appomattox Court House in Virginia
• A Willy’s Jeep used during World War II
• a restored UH-1H Huey Helicopter, deployed in Vietnam in 1966
• Gen. Colin Powell’s uniform from Operation Desert Storm

The National Museum of American History is located on the National Mall, 14th Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C., and is open daily except Dec. 25, from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. “The Price of Freedom: Americans at War,” is an ongoing exhibit and admission is free. For information, call (202) 633-1000.

The National Museum of Health and Medicine also has an exhibit on the Civil War entitled “To Bind Up the Nation’s Wounds: Medicine during the Civil War,” which tells the story of the war through the eyes of surgeons as well as the sick and wounded. The exhibit includes the museum’s most famous artifact, the bullet that killed President Abraham Lincoln, and the probe that his doctor used during the autopsy on the night of his assassination. Also on display are surgical tools used by doctors, photographs of amputees and the leg bone of Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickles.

The National Museum of Health and Medicine was established in 1862 when U.S. Army Brigadier General William Alexander Hammond, the U.S. Army Surgeon General, issued orders that directed all Union Army medical officers "to collect, and to forward to the office of the Surgeon General all specimens of morbid anatomy, surgical or medical, which may be regarded as valuable; together with projectiles and foreign bodies removed, and such other matters as may prove of interest in the study of military medicine or surgery."

Today, the museum is an element of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), a tri-service Army, Navy, and Air Force agency of the Department of Defense with a threefold mission of consultation, education, and research.

The museum's more than 24 million specimens and artifacts are registered by the U.S. Department of the Interior as a National Historic Landmark and it is the only museum collection in Washington, D.C. with this status because of its "exceptional value in commemorating and illustrating the history of the United States."

The museum is open every day except Dec. 25 from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. It is located at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 6900 Georgia Ave. and Elder Street, NW, Washington, D.C. Tours are led by docents and are offered free to walk-in visitors at 1 p.m. on the second and fourth Saturday of each month. More information can be found on the web site at www.nmhm.washingtondc.museum and the telephone number is 202-782-2200. Admission and parking are free.