Bookworm #93 – Author Conversation: Barbara Franco, “Gettysburg Surgeons: Facing a Common Enemy in the Civil War’s Deadliest Battle”

July 17, 2026 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM ET

ZOOM

Angela Oonk hosts this webinar series discussing history topics with guests. This month, historian and author of Gettysburg Surgeons: Facing a Common Enemy in the Civil War’s Deadliest Battle Barbara Franco takes us to Gettysburg, the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. A thousand surgeons faced an unprecedented medical catastrophe: 25,000 wounded soldiers needing immediate care with only primitive tools and their own determination to save lives.

At Gettysburg’s makeshift hospitals—set up in barns, churches, and blood-soaked fields—military and civilian surgeons from both North and South worked around the clock performing life-saving operations under fire. Drawing from a decade of meticulous research, Franco reveals how these courageous medical professionals revolutionized battlefield medicine and established principles still saving lives today.

Graphic advertising the Clements Bookworm featuring the cover of Barbara Franco's "Gettysburg Surgeons: Facing a Common Enemy in the Civil War's Deadliest Battle," a picture of the author, and details about the event.