Injury at Gettysburg

This surgeon's report from 1898 was submitted in conjunction with an application for pension increase.  

Herein the doctors record Bolton's complaints and description of his injury sustained at Gettysburg as well as the doctor's observations of the resulting scars:

"Claimant alleges that he received a sabre wound of the head on the 3rd day of July 1863 at Gettysburg and was off duty and in Hospital about 4 months.  Claims that he suffers from dizzy spells and neurologic pains in the head and that his memory is defective as results of the injury. . .

. . . There is a scar on the forehead about one inch below the superior angle of the frontal bone.  The outer table of the bone has evidently been scooped out leaving a depression 1 1/2 x 1 1/4 inches and just below this to left side of forehead is a deep linear scar two inches in length the result of a direct sabre cut.  This wound probably penetrated both tables of the skull. . . the claimant alleges that at the time, he recieved the above wound he also recieved twosabre thrusts on the rt [sic] shoulder blade--there are two scars on the rt scapular.  The symptoms complained of ie dizzinees, neurologia. . . are subjective only, but probably are connected with the wounds in the forehead."

Marvin was fortunate to survive his injuries at Gettysburg, but the effects of those injuries would haunt him for the rest of his life and may have contributed to the farming accident which caused his death.