Corner Society for the History of Medicine: Disability and the American Civil War

During the Civil War and long after, the bodies of Union soldiers and veterans were sites of powerful cultural beliefs about duty and sacrifice. However, the realities of living with a disability were ever at odds with the expectations of manhood. As a consequence, men who failed to perform the role of wounded warrior properly could be scrutinized for failing to live up to standards of martial masculinity. Under the gaze of surgeons, officers, bureaucrats, and civilians, disabled soldiers made difficult negotiations in their attempts to accommodate impaired bodies and please observers. Some managed this process with ease; others struggled and suffered. In this talk, historian Sarah Handley-Cousins will use a case study of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain to explore these tensions and move us closer to a full understanding of disability in the Civil War era.

Sarah Handley-Cousins is an associate teaching professor of History at the University at Buffalo, where she teaches courses on US History, disability, medicine, gender, and war. Her first book, Bodies in Blue: Disability in the Civil War North, was published in 2019 by the University of Georgia Press and received the 2020 Outstanding Book award from the Disability History Association. She is the executive editor of the digital publication Nursing Clio, and with the rest of the editorial team, she published The Nursing Clio Reader with Rutgers University Press in 2025. She is the president of the Disability History Association and, until June 2026, served as Secretary of the American Association for the History of Medicine.