Vintage Photos: John January

John W. January, Union soldier and POW at Andersonville, GA and Florence, SC, amputated his own gangrenous feet because no surgeon was available at the prison.   During his 16 months in captivity, he dropped to just 45 lbs and was not expected to survive after his release.  Not only did he survive, he married and became the father of six children.  Years after the war ended, his story received national attention in magazines and newspapers.  January died in 1906.

Comments

[retriever]

Wow! They don't make em like they used to....Great picture!

[anon]

Remember Aron Ralston, the hiker who cut off his own arm?

[Chris Goodwin]

More info? Links? This is an intriguing story.

[Megan Kate Nelson]

Great photo!
But there is some dispute about whether or not January actually cut off his own feet. George E. Reed, a private in Company A, 95th Pennsylvania Vols., claimed that he was the one to amputate January's feet, using "a brick-bat, an old knife and a pair of scissors with one tyne broke half off." In addition to his own account of the amputation, Reed published a letter he received from January admitting that Reed had completed both amputations, and that he only went forward with the story to make money on the lecture circuit. Reed's account and multiple epistolary "testimonials" are included in “January: The Claim that He Cut off his Own Feet Denied,” in Charles A. Cummings, *The Great War Relic* (1890s), a copy of which is at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.