LETTERS FROM A CIVIL WAR SURGEON, by Dr. William Child, Polar Bear & Company, Solon, 400 pages, $25.

The Civil War has been explored from every angle by legions of professional historians to the point, where there is nothing new under the literary sun. Or is there?

The Fifth New Hampshire Volunteers had the very dubious distinction of shedding more blood than any other Union regiment. That unit’s surgeon, Dr. William Child from Bath, N.H., became the Forrest Gump of the war, when he was a reluctant eyewitness of all the major battles from Antietam to Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Cold Harbor. He was even in Ford’s Theater on April 14, 1865, when President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by actor John Wilkes Booth.

Child’s tale is told through 150 letters home to his wife, Carrie, written from 1862 to 1865. Child repeatedly asked his wife to burn the letters, but they survived and are now published by his family in “Letters From A Civil War Surgeon.”

The book contains copies of the original letters. Great-great-granddaughter Laurie Sawyer Elliott was familiar with the Child letters and even used them for school reports. She often heard the family history at her grandmother’s knee. Finally, she agreed to publish them, although “knowing that his most personal thoughts and feelings will now be shared with the world, would, I am sure, bring a blush to his checks. I also hope that it would bring a smile to his face and peace to his heart.”

Dr. Child was born to a well-to-do family in Bath, N. H., on Feb. 24, 1834. His father was Dwight P. Child, a member of a noted family of educators and his mother was Nancy Morse, relative of the inventor of the telegraph. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1857. In August 1862, with war clouds forming, he was commissioned assistant surgeon of the Fifth New Hampshire Volunteers and rose to become surgeon, then division surgeon.

Few, if any participants in the horrible and noble Civil War struggle saw more blood, suffering and dying than the New Hampshire doctor. His post-Dartmouth education was swift and brutal.

After his first battle at Sharpsburg on Sept. 22, 1862, where he treated 64 shattered soldiers, he wrote “the days after the battle are a thousand times worse than the day of the battle and the physical pain is not the greatest pain suffered. How awful it is. You have not, nor can you have until you see it, any idea of affairs after a battle. The dead appear sickening but they suffer no pain. But the poor wounded, mutilated soldiers that yet have life and sensation make a most horrid picture. I pray God may stop such infernal work though perhaps he has sent it upon us for our sins. Great indeed must have been our sins if such is our punishment. ”

During that battle, Child guessed that he operated on 450 soldiers.

“The wounds were in all parts you can think, but seven tenths of all have suffered amputation,” he wrote.

After the epic battle of Gettysburg where he hid behind a loghouse to survive the titanic cannon battle, Child wrote, “I have been over the field today. I will not attempt to describe the horrors. It has been one of the severest battles of the war. Dead men and horses cover the field three miles long and one mile wide. The stench is awful. The rebs fought desperately but we have the victory this time.”

He wrote bitterly of the desertions and the resulting executions that plagued the Union and regretted the war was inspired at least in part to better the lives of his black countrymen.

Child was stationed in Washington, D.C., by April 1865 when the South finally surrendered.

“The city celebrated the surrender of Gen. Lee last evening by illumination, fireworks and one grand drunk.” History will never learn whether the country doctor joined in the festivities.

But the horrors were not over for the doctor. In an April 14, 1865, letter he wrote, “This night I have seen the murder of the president of the United States.”

“Early in the evening, I went to Ford’s Theater. After a little time the president entered and was greeted with cheers. The play went on for about an hour. Just at the close of an interesting scene a sharp, quick report of a pistol was heard and instantly a man jumped from the box to the stage and rushing across the stage, made his escape

“This I saw and heard. I was in the theater and sat opposite the president’s box. The assassin exclaimed as he leaped “sic semper tyrannis.” I never saw such a scene as followed. Are we living in the days of the French Revolution? Will peace ever come to our dear land? Are we to rush on to wild ruin?”

The next day he wrote ” I shall remember the fiend-like expression of the assassin’s face while I live.”

“Letters from a Civil War Surgeon” is a valuable, original glimpse of the horrors of war, complete with the original letters and photographs.