Long after the guns grew silent at Antietam, the earth yielded up a gruesome reminder of the bloodie скачать в хорошем качестве

Long after the guns grew silent at Antietam, the earth yielded up a gruesome reminder of the bloodie

(27 Jul 2012) HEADLINE: Civil War museum gives severed arm a good look --------------------------------------- CAPTION: Long after the guns grew silent at Antietam, the earth yielded up a gruesome reminder of the bloodiest day of the American Civil War: a severed limb, now the focus of intense study at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Maryland. (April 11) ---------------------------------------- [Notes:AP] [Notes:Sharpsburg, MD] [Notes:Frederick, MD] [Notes:Lori Eggleston, museum curator, National Museum of Civil War Medicine] SOT: We have a mummified arm that was found on the Antietam battlefield shortly after the battle SOT: You can see that it's pretty well intact. You've got most of the skin there, you've got some bone showing through here on one of the fingers SOT: Well, we actually got a call from an anonymous donor asking if we were interested in obtaining an arm from the Antietam battlefield, and of course, we were SOT: If you turn it over to the other side, you see the arm bones. You can see that you still have a joint here. This was not an amputation. This arm was most likely blown off SOT: A farmer picked it up off the battlefield and thought it would make a good souvenir. He reportedly put it into a brine solution, which preserved it somewhat. SOT: You can see that the joint is still fairly intact. And you can see that the end of the bone here that was broken and not sawed off, so this was not an amputated arm. SOT: Well, I don't know that we'll actually be able to identify the person. I don't know that DNA testing is possible, considering the solutions that it was preserved in. It's something that we definitely need to look into. STORYLINE: Long after the guns grew silent at Antietam, the earth yielded up gruesome reminders of the bloodiest day of the American Civil War: bodies, bones, buttons and entire severed limbs _ one of which is now the focus of intense study at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine. A Sharpsburg-area farmer is said to have found the human forearm while plowing a field two weeks after the 1862 battle. Officials at the museum in Frederick, Md., are trying to learn more about the limb in hopes of verifying that it's a relic of the Battle of Antietam and exhibiting the well-preserved specimen during the battle's 150th anniversary in September. The muddy-looking right forearm, with skin and hand attached, was donated anonymously to the museum earlier this year, said Executive Director George Wunderlich. It had been displayed for several decades at a private museum in Sharpsburg in a glass-topped, pine case with a placard reading, "Human arm found on the Antietam Battlefield." Though there is little hope of identifying the young man who lost it, Wunderlich said forensic experts may be able to discern his nationality and whether the arm was, as Wunderlich suspects, torn from his body by a bullet or artillery round. "Being able to put the story of this unknown person before this country is very important to us," Wunderlich said. "His remains will tell a story that will relate us back to his sacrifice. This was what they gave for what they believed. If done properly, it's a very poignant story." The unidentified farmer who found the limb put it in a barrel of brine, according to Thomas McGrath's 1997 book, "Maryland September: True Stories from the Antietam Campaign." The farmer reportedly gave it to a Boonsboro physician, who is said to have more permanently preserved it with embalming fluid. Alexander grew up nearby and remembers seeing the arm on display. "It is really an impressive piece," Gardner said. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...