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The young man asked not to be disturbed. Shut up in his upstairs room in his parents home, he requested only that his meals be delivered and that he have only a few other things—barrel staves and a penknife. His family believed that he needed time alone to contemplate his situation. He was the first amputee of the Civil War and was just 18 years old. Whittling might pass the time. All they saw of him was the empty plates set outside his room.
In the weeks following, he requested some other items be delivered to his room: willow wood, metal, leather, and fabric. The family was perplexed. They heard him moving about on his peg leg and found buckets of wood shavings that he had created sitting outside his door. He was likely depressed from his injury, but what was he doing in there for so many weeks and now months?
Alone, James had a great deal of time to think and whittle. He had been an engineering student at Washington College, Virginia when he enlisted in the confederate army. Following two of his four older brothers and four of his cousins, he joined up with the Churchville Cavalry at the little town of Phillipi in West Virginia. It was June 1, 1861. Two days later the little band of 750 poorly equipped confederates were attacked by federals 1,500 strong. It would be the first land battle of the war.
Hanger had been sleeping in a hayloft when the attack occurred. He leaped onto the floor of the barn to tend his horse when a shot from the Union cannons landed in the stable. He recalled to himself the events of that night:
“The first two shots were canister and directed at the Cavalry Camps, the third shot was a 6 pound solid shot aimed at a stable in which the Churchville Cavalry Company had slept. This shot struck the ground, richochetted [sic], entering the stable and struck me. I remained in the stable til they came looking for plunder, about four hours after I was wounded.”
Hanger was unconscious and had been left to die. His company fled the area. Realizing the extreme blood loss and the severity of his injury, it was decided that only immediate amputation would save his life, and the Union doctor, Dr. James Robinson called for the barn door to be used as a makeshift operating table. Sensing time was critical, he amputated the leg above the knee without anesthetic. Hanger would be the first amputee of the Civil War. There would be 50,000 more before the war would end.
Half of all amputees would die of infections or complications—especially if there were any delay in the surgery after the injury. Hanger was one of the fortunate ones who had an amputation soon after he was shot. He would survive.
James spent a few weeks recuperating in a private home and then to Camp Chase in Ohio and then to Norfolk, Virginia. As a prisoner of the Union Army he accommodated his new peg leg as best he might. It was a painful device. To walk, one had to swing the peg leg in a half circle and then firmly plant it on the ground. Only then could the other leg be moved. This led to the classic “thumping” sound of walking with a wooden leg. The pressure on the thigh led to sores and infections.
Some months later he was exchanged with a Union soldier and was allowed to return to his home in Virginia.
Three months passed.
One morning he opened the door and walked down the stairs to greet his family. No longer wearing a peg leg, but a real-looking wooden leg that bent at the knee! He had used the willow to craft a carved socket for his thigh, the oak barrel staves for the lower leg, the metal to craft a hinge, the fabric and leather to form the softer hinges of the foot and the straps to hold the leg to his body.
Based on his bad experience with the peg leg, he had engineered a better solution. The “Hanger Leg” was the first articulated, double-jointed prosthetic leg.
Hanger went on to craft artificial legs for others with similar amputations. His became famous with other veterans as his legs were far superior to other methods of making prosthetic limbs. He developed new models and filed for several patents for his designs.
He began a successful company that continues to this day, the Hanger Prosthetic Company.
A postscipt to the story is found on the company’s website:
Mr. Hanger who noticed an elderly man, obviously disabled and poor, begging near the U.S. Capitol, as he came to and from his business. Both of the man’s legs had been amputated above the knee; he held out a hat to collect change from sympathetic passers-by. Hanger was touched by the man’s plight, and as Chris Ingraham recounts in the history, “Despite the stigma he knew might come from showing fondness to a minority at that time in the South’s history, it made little difference to James that the beggar was a man of color. What James saw was a man in need of two legs. He took the man in to his shop and fit him, free of charge, with two of the company’s newest and most functional prosthetic limbs.”
To watch a short film on the Hanger Corporation and the story of James Hanger, watch this video:
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