Battle-scarred examines mortality, medical care and military welfare during the British Civil Wars. Its focus on the victims of war and their means of survival provides a series of case studies to demonstrate how these visceral conflicts drove developments in medical care and military welfare for servicemen and their families.

IntroductionDavid J. Appleby and Andrew HopperPart I: Mortality1 Battlefields, burials and the English Civil WarsIan Atherton2 Controlling disease in a civil-war garrison town: military discipline or civic duty? The surviving evidence for Newark upon Trent, 1642–46Stuart B. JenningsPart II: Medical care3 A new kind of surgery for a new kind of war: gunshot wounds and their treatment in the British Civil WarsStephen M. Rutherford4 ‘Stout Skippon hath a wound’: the medical treatment of Parliament’s infantry commander following the battle of NasebyIsmini Pells5 ‘Dead hogges, dogges, cats and well flayed carryon horses’: royalist hospital provision during the First Civil WarEric Gruber von Arni6 Gerard’s Herball and the treatment of war-wounds and contagion during the English Civil WarRichard JonesPart III: The hidden human costs7 The third army: wandering soldiers and the negotiation of parliamentary authority, 1642–51David J. Appleby8 ‘The deep staines these Wars will leave behind’: psychological wounds and curative methods in the English Civil WarsErin Peters9 The administration of military welfare in Kent, 1642–79Hannah Worthen10 ‘To condole with me on the Commonwealth’s loss’: the widows and orphans of Parliament’s military commandersAndrew Hopper11 ‘So necessarie and charitable a worke’: welfare, identity and Scottish prisoners of war in England, 1650–55Chris R. LangleyConclusionDavid J. Appleby and Andrew HopperIndex

Historians of the British Civil Wars are increasingly taking notice of these bloody conflicts as a critical episode in the welfare history of Europe. Battle-scarred examines the human costs of the conflict and the ways in which they left lasting physical and mental scars after the cessation of armed hostilities. From a wider perspective, it continues the huge advances which have been made in our understanding of the experiences of the common people during this series of conflicts. Its chapters analyse the effectiveness of the provision of medical care, how military welfare operated and the means by which the British peoples endured this traumatic catastrophe. The book focuses on epidemic disease, mortality, burial, wounds, surgery and hospitals, herbal medicine, desertion and demobilisation, trauma, imprisonment, pensions and charitable collections during wartime. It advances and widens our understanding of the medical history of the Civil Wars through examining details of the soldiers’ wounds and ailments, along with the treatments afforded to them. It also broadens approaches to military history by examining the many ways in which state-sponsored military welfare functioned. Its concern to articulate the experience, agency and self-fashioning of war widows will appeal to historians of women, allowing them to extend their focus beyond the more heavily studied memoirs of the social elite. This book will be of interest to academics and students alike, and beyond academia it reaches out to Civil War enthusiasts and those interested in the wider history of medicine and welfare.