Is it true that fighting was so vicious during the Revolutionary war that no wounded survived?

Question

Were they all killed?

Answer 1

that is not true at all. there were of course survivors. but to be wounded could be as bad as getting killed outright, not due to the fighting, but to the onset of infection in wounded men. to be wounded in the stomach was worst, because very little could be done to stop internal bleeding. a wounded limb could be amputated to stop the spread of gangrene, but the risk of infection was exceedingly high because the germ theory of medicine had not been developed, and doctors would move from patient to patient using the same dirty instruments.

so to sum up, there were of course survivors. wounded were more at risk from infection, not the severity of their wounds due to fighting.

Answer 2

It is more likely that most of the wounded died from inadequate medical treatment. During the Civil War, medical care improved with field hospitals, so more soldiers survived their injuries than did the ones in the Revolutionary war.
NUMBER SERVING 217,0003
WOUNDED 6,188
BATTLE DEATHS 4,435

http://www.americanfamilytraditions.com/war_casualties.htm

Answer 3

I know they weren't all killed. My great-great-great. . .grandfather, Freeman Battershell, survived. Also, one of the few women who fought in the war, Rebecca Sampson, who went by the name of Robert Shurtliffe, survived a musketball in the leg. The problem was not only that the fighting was so fierce, but the state of medicine at the time was so primitive that infections and disease probably killed more soldiers than bullet wounds.

Answer 4

I doubt it. However, wounded didn't have hospitals in the field like we do today. Most cures for bullet wounds were either digging it out with whiskey/vinegar as a coagulant, or saw off the limb.

Answer 5

I don't know if that would be a sign of how vicious the fighting was or of how poor the medical treatment was at that time.