Jessica Moore Maine History Joshua Chamberlain Almost a year after his gallant defense of Little Round Top, Joshua Chamberlain stood before his Maine men on the outskirts of Petersburg, Va, and as he lifted his sword to motion for a leftward oblique, a musket bullet ripped through his side. The lead bullet traveled through his right hip to the left, crushing his bones and cutting into his bladder and urethra in the process. As blood pooled around his feet, Chamberlain knew the wound was likely to be fatal but was afraid that falling in front of his men might derail their momentum, so he held himself up bravely on his saber until he collapsed. He laid bleeding out into the Virginia ground for an hour. When he finally arrived at the field hospital, Chamberlain asked the surgeons to leave him and see to the soldiers first. Then he laid there waiting to die. However, an unprecedented wound exploration in the field hospital was performed to extract the bullet and "reconnect severed urinary organs." Hope for recovery was nonexistent as urine was seen exiting the lower wound post-operatively. Chamberlain’s injury required four subsequent repairs during his lifetime and ultimately, left him with a draining “urethrocutaneous fistula at the penoscrotal junction”. Survival from catastrophic Civil War wounds was incredibly rare, especially from "gut wounds" which
