"A WOUND IS THE BEST DECORATION"

From: "Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat in the American Civil War" Gerald F. Linderman

“A more accurate gauge of the weight with which courage’s war bore down on soldiers was to be found in their discussions of wounds as desirable, even valued, acquisitions.  Rutherford Hayes “fiercely wished” a wound—and was rewarded with five. The colonel of the 9^th New York complained to a wounded fellow officer: “You are a lucky man, Colonel.  I’d give a thousand dollars if I had your wound.  I am afraid my friends in New York will think me a coward because I never can get hit.

“Searching for his wounded son on the field at Antietam, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., observed of the survivors that the “wounds they bore would be the medals they would show their children and grandchildren by and by.  Who would not rather wear his decorations beneath his uniform than on it?

"One of Louisa May Alcott’s patients, shot through the cheek, requested a mirror; his image worried him. “I vow to gosh, that’s too bad! I warn’t a bad looking chap before, and now I’m done for’ won’t there be a thunderin’ scar? and what on earth will Josephine Skinner say?”  To Alcott the answer came easily: His fiancée would surely admire his “honorable scar,” “lasting proof that he had faced the enemy, for all women thought a wound the best decoration a brave soldier could wear.”