In remembrance of the Civil War during its sesquicentennial, the Sims Memorial Library currently displaying the exhibit “Life and Limb: The toll of the American Civil War.” The exhibit, produced by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, is a traveling exhibit that was originally applied for by Ladonna Guillot, the health science librarian. After taking medical leave Beth Stahr, head of reference and instruction, assisted in setting up the exhibit.
According to Stahr, the exhibit was put on display specifically for students majoring in history, but also as a general means of broadening the public’s knowledge about the medical aspects of the Civil War.
“We have a lot of history students here, including a master’s degree in history, and we thought it would be interesting to them,” said Stahr. “And it would be interesting to some of the community users as well as just many other undergraduate students who might have studied a little bit about the war, but didn’t really know about civil war medicine, the battlefield and looked at displays of the surgeons’ orders.”
The exhibit includes six boards of information relating to the Civil War including the title board, “Life and Limb,” and five additional boards of facts, quotes and photographs titled as follows: “The Horror of War,” “Maimed Men,” “Honorable Scars,” “The Empty Sleeve” and “Sacrifices Forgotten.”  Below the title of the second panel, “The Horror of War” reads the quote, “No tongue can tell, no mind conceive, no pen portray the horrible sights I witnessed.’ Recollections of a soldier wounded at Antietam, 1862.”
The exhibit also showcases two enclosed cases which display books about the Civil War and reproduced items pertaining to soldier’s lives at the time of the war. Some of the items displayed are a tobacco bag, ink powder, a can of condensed milk and Stansfield’s Superfine Ragg Redcliff St. Bristol.
Nikka Hunter, a freshman majoring in music, found the exhibit to be interesting and relatable. “I have a sister who is in the army and my dad is a veteran,” said Hunter. “So, I like to hear things about this kind of stuff. It really hits home.”
According to Stahr, Sims Library has participated in other programs relating to the Civil War, including 2011 “Lincoln: The Constitution and the Civil War” national traveling exhibition organized by The National Constitution Center, the American Library Association Public Programs Office and the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the 2012 reading and discussion series, “Let’s Talk About It: Making Sense of the American Civil War,” made possible by a grant from the American Library Association and the National Endowment for the Humanities. But, according to Guillot, this is the first time they have partaken in this particular program which was applied for in advance.
“The free exhibitions are very popular and booking occurs several years in advance of the exhibit date.  Our interest in this particular program was based on Sims Library’s participation in another Civil War program funded by the American Library Association,” said Guillot. “The Civil War is a very popular topic on campus and in the surrounding community so we are always looking for quality programming ideas on this topic that will engage the campus and greater local community.”
Dayne Sherman, coordinator of user education for Sims, does a segment on KSLU’s radio show every Sunday evening. He devoted his Nov. 3 airing to Civil War era music called “BAM, Bluegrass and More.” The exhibit, as well as the radio show, are each resources for students and the local community to expand their knowledge of the Civil War, according to Stahr. The library has books on Civil War medicine and more available for check out. The exhibit will be on display until Dec. 13 and is open to the public. For additional information about medicine during the Civil War visit www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/lifeandlimb/index.html.