Notes for Robert Alexander HANNA

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Notes for Robert Alexander HANNA

Robert Alexander Hanna enlisted in the CSA in 1861. He was wounded and
his left leg was amputated at Gettysburg, PA, July 1, 1863.

Source: Geraldine (Jerri) M. Allen.

ROBERT ALEXANDER HANNA

A rare exhibit is currently on display at the Bentonville Battleground
state historic site in Four Oaks, NC: a state-issued wooden leg worn by
Confederate veteran Robert Alexander Hanna, who lost his leg at
Gettysburg. This is the only known surviving artificial limb that North
Carolina gave to amputees after the war. The battleground is located at
5466 Harper House Road in Four Oaks.

Hannah was a true Southern patriot. According to the article below from
the Winston-Salem (NC) Journal, when he died in 1918, "he was buried in a
gray uniform -- a gray suit they made for him. He wouldn't wear a blue
suit."

THE SOLE SURVIVOR
By
David Rice
Winston-Salem (NC) Journal

In 1867, the state of North Carolina quite literally gave Robert
Alexander Hanna a leg to stand on, replacing the one he lost at
Gettysburg. And 137 years later, Hanna's grandson gave it back. Hanna, a
native of Anson County, was a member of the 26th North Carolina, a
regiment that lost more soldiers than any other on either side in the
Civil War.

At Gettysburg on July 1, 1863, he was shot above the left ankle and in
the head. Surgeons removed the grapeshot from his head and amputated his
leg just below the knee. With arm and leg wounds, "They didn't take shot
out back then. They just whacked it off," said Hanna's grandson, Duncan
Hanna, who lives in Red Springs. Duncan Hanna recently lent the state
his grandfather's artificial leg - the only surviving model that
researchers have found of the sort North Carolina gave to amputees after
the war. It is now on display at the Bentonville Battlefield, where
officials this weekend marked the 139th anniversary of the battle fought
there.

When Hanna was shot at Gettysburg, "He laid out there all day and part of
the night. It was 93 degrees that day. They were wearing wool uniforms,"
his grandson said. "His birthday was July 1 - that was one hell of a
birthday present." But after his leg was amputated, Hanna returned to
Anson County to run a turpentine mill and his farm near Wadesboro. He
remained loyal to the Southern cause, naming all his sons for Confederate
generals. "He didn't name any after Pickett. He wasn't real fond of
him," Duncan Hanna said. And he didn't apply for a military pension
until after the turn of the century. "He wouldn't sign the oath of
allegiance. He was afraid he'd get hung," Hanna said.

Robert Hanna struggled at times, especially in the fall, when the corn
stalks on his farm were dry. "You could hear him screaming, and they'd
say, 'Leave him alone.' The wind would blow and the corn stalks would
rub together and it would sound like men marching. He'd have
flashbacks," his grandson said.

In 1866, North Carolina became the first state to start a program to give
artificial limbs to amputees after the war. The thousands of soldiers
who lost arms and legs in the war fueled a new industry producing
artificial limbs, and there was a rush on patents as manufacturers worked
to come up with the best design.

"When I first started researching it, I was just floored by people's
response to the need for artificial limbs," said Ansley Herring Wegner, a
researcher at the N.C. Division of Archives and History. Wegner, an
archivist at the time, began researching the artificial-limb program in
1997 after she came across five boxes of records - forms, applications
and letters - from the program. In all, 1,550 veterans wrote to the
state about their wartime disabilities.

After a crude form of surgery, often in a field hospital in highly
unsanitary conditions, "They were left with these ugly stumps that they
had to jam down in these artificial legs," Wegner said. The program
offered free rail passage and rooming in Raleigh to veterans who came to
Raleigh to have limbs fitted. The state paid $75 to those who didn't
want an artificial leg or wanted to buy a different model, and $50 to
those who didn't want an artificial arm.

From 1866 to 1870, "We spent $81,310.12 on the program," Wegner said.
"How was it we were able to do this even when we were closing down
schools, because we couldn't afford to keep schools open at the time?"
In fact, in 1872, the combined state and local spending on public schools
in North Carolina was $155,000, according to state fiscal records. But
there was broad public support for the artificial-limb program.

Wegner points to an editorial in the North Carolina Standard newspaper on
Jan. 19, 1866. "The writer claimed that the legs 'make the man almost
over again' and allowed him to become a 'producer' rather than a
'consumer.' The writer even went so far as to state that 'No act could
be passed which would be more acceptable to our people. They will
cheerfully pay the small amount of taxes necessary to effect this
object,'" Wegner wrote in a 1998 article.

Wegner has now finished a book on the program called Phantom Pain that
will be published this summer. She sees parallels between the phantom
pain that amputees felt from their lost limbs and the lingering remorse
that white Southerners felt after the war from the loss of loved ones,
homes, farms and their slave-based economy.

"Within the Tar Heel State, the artificial limbs program helped to
ameliorate the phantom pain of the amputees and the phantom pain of a
society devastated by war," Wegner wrote in the 1998 article. But the
politics didn't stop with voters' support. In 1866, like today,
politicians preferred local contractors. Though there were leg
manufacturers in London, Rochester and Philadelphia, N.C. Gov. Jonathan
Worth favored a contract with Jewett's Patent Leg Co. of Washington, D.C.

"A young man of good character and skilled as a mechanic in the
manufacture of artificial limbs and a native of this state was working in
the establishment," he wrote the General Assembly in February 1866. "The
governor found out that a good old North Carolina
boy was making these up in Washington. He was a cabinetmaker from New
Bern. They brought him down, and he built them using the Jewett patent,"
Wegner said. "We were the only state that picked this company. It was
because good old John T. Ball from New Bern was
their carpenter," she said.

Wegner eventually tracked the Jewett leg design to Gilford, N.H. But she
had trouble tracking down one of the actual legs that the state gave
out. Unlike more primitive wooden "peg" legs, the Jewett leg was covered
with leather to simulate skin, and it had a spring-loaded
toe joint and an ankle joint. "This was high-tech. This was like bionic
legs today," she said. With so many pieces and moving parts, there was a
problem. "They wore out," Wegner said. "That's why in so many Civil War
reunion photos that you see, they're all wearing peg legs. They wore
out.... It was so delicate that you stomp around on that for a while, and
it was gone."

Robert Hanna went to Raleigh in 1867 to be fitted with an artificial leg,
and he took care of the one he received. "That was his Sunday leg. He
wore that on special occasions," said Duncan Hanna, who said that his
grandfather wore the leg to church and even to square
dances to make use of its flexible toe. "He liked to be sharp. He
wouldn't wear it in the rain, either - not even with a boot on it," he
said. For other occasions, "He had several other legs he had made
himself. He had one that had a bull's hoof on it (for the foot)," Hanna
said.
Robert Hanna continued using the leg sparingly until he died in 1918,
still a proud Confederate veteran.

"He was buried with no leg. He was buried in a gray uniform - a gray suit
they made for him. He wouldn't wear a blue suit," his grandson said.
Duncan Hanna, now 57, inherited the leg when he was a boy. "I just set
it in the corner. I've had it with me all of my life, just a
conversation piece - that and the grapeshot that came out of his head,"
he said.

When he wrote the Division of Archives and History last year to request
copies of his grandfather's pension records, Hanna casually mentioned
that he still had Robert Hanna's artificial leg. His letter found its
way to Wegner, who had become known as the
artificial-limb lady within the office. "He's got a really, really rare
artifact that he sort of took for granted all these years," Wegner
said.
So Hanna agreed to lend his grandfather's leg to the state.

After candy wrappers, a dime and even a baby tooth were removed from
inside, the leg underwent some restoration work. It is now on display in
a case at the Bentonville Battlefield - next to the blades in a Civil War
surgeon's amputation kit. The Harper House at the battlefield is
furnished as the field hospital it was during the March 1865 battle.

In three days of battle, 600 soldiers were treated at the house.
Soldiers' written accounts say that surgeons threw the arms and legs they
amputated out the windows of the house, and they lay scattered on the
grass. The site occasionally holds surgical re-enactments and symposiums
on Civil War medicine.

And even though Duncan Hanna says that the leg is technically on loan to
the state, "It's going to be there a long time. It needs to be," he
said. "It'll probably be there forever. "What I wanted to do was bring
the man back from the grave.... I don't want it to lay in the ground
after all he went through," he said. "It's all about him."

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