Jewett Patent Legs for NC Amputees-- Part 4

Some 1,550 Confederate veterans applied for the artificial legs.

One Tarheel veteran, Robert Alexander Hanna, had been wounded in the head and left leg just below the ankle joint at the Battle of Gettysburg. Suffering for about a month and with the leg wound oozing pus, his leg was amputated. He received his Jewett Artificial Leg in January 1867.

He used it on special occasions as he had made other artificial legs to help him with farmwork (one of which had a bull hoof for a foot). Not using it on a daily basis helped keep his Jewett leg in good shape. When he died in 1917, at the age of 85, he still had it and it was in real good shape.

--Old Secesh