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[[File:Picketts-Charge,-Battle-of-Gettysburg-in-1863-278439-large.jpg|thumbnail|300px|Prominently featured in this painting of Pickett's Charge is Gen. Armistead reaching for the gun with his hat high on his sword.]]By all accounts, Armistead’s wound was not thought to be mortal. He was treated at a Union field hospital by Dr. Daniel Brinton. The doctor believed that although amputation was probable, Armistead had a very good chance of survival as "no arteries had been severed."<ref>Priest, 162.</ref> When Armistead was treated at the XI Corps hospital, Dr. Henry Hendrick reported that, “‘He had lost quite a deal of blood, but the wounds were not necessarily fatal. He never rallied, however, and died a little past noon on the Fourth of July’”<ref>Frey, 151.</ref>We are now presented with two men and two wounds. One was expected to live while the other was told he would die. Some science is needed to understand the surprising turn of events.
[[File:pinkbrain.jpg|thumbnail|250px|Everything that occurs in the human body stems from the mind.]]
Admin moved page How Did God Influence the Wounded in the American Civil War? to How Did God Influence the Wounded in the American Civil War
== Brigadier General Lewis A. Armistead ==
[[File:Lewis_A._ArmisteadPicketts-Charge,-Battle-of-Gettysburg-in-1863-278439-large.jpg|thumbnail|250px|Brig left|Prominently featured in this painting of Pickett's Charge is Gen Lewis A. Armistead, circa 1861reaching for the gun with his hat high on his sword.]]Confederate Brigadier General Lewis Armistead was wounded one day after Estee. Armistead was a man in his early forties and a seasoned military veteran. He had attended West Point with some of the same men against whom he fought. Armistead is best remembered for his gallant attempt to breach Union lines on July 3, 1863 , as a member of the ill-fated “Pickett’s Charge.” As he reached the Union artillery, with his hat wielded high upon his sword, he was shot through the “fleshy part of the arm” and in the “right leg.”<ref>John Michael Priest, ''Into the Fight: Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg'' (Shippensburg, PA: White Mane Books, 1998), 162.</ref>Unlike Estee, his wounds were seemingly innocuous, albeit painful.
Armistead received his wounds on the final day of battle at Gettysburg. The general’s brigade penetrated the Union lines further than any other during the doomed charge. General Pickett’s division contained three brigades totaling 5,820 men. Of this number, little more than half (3,180) returned safely to their lines<ref>Priest, 199.</ref> General Armistead represented a number in all of the statistical columns: killed in action, wounded in action, and captured in action. On the brink of Confederate immortality, Armistead, “hat on the hilt of his sword,” breached the Union's line.<ref>Donald J. Frey, ''Longstreet's Assault-Pickett's Charge: The Lost Record of Pickett's Wounded''(Shippensburg, PA: Burd Street Press, 2000),139</ref> As the general reached the second line of Federal guns, he placed his hand upon the barrel of a cannon and shouted to his men, “The day is ours. Turn these guns upon them, boys.”<ref>Frey, 143.</ref>Almost immediately after the triumphant words left his mouth, he fell at the hands of a Union rifle.
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== Philosophy ==
Like other animals, humans are also classically conditioned. So-called "sugar pills' are not the only form in which placebos present themselves. God can also act as a placebo, or rather, it is the ''conditioned belief'' in God that can generate the placebo effect. In essence, a conditioned belief comes from knowledge. The late physicist and philosopher, Ian Barbour asserted, "Science seems to provide the only reliable path to knowledge."<ref>Ian Barbour, ''Religion and Science: Historical and Contemporary Issues'' (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1997), 77.</ref> Barbour may be correct; however, if knowledge can be defined as answers gained through experience, whether real or imagined, science is not the only answer. Private Estee was not a man of medicine or any other scientific discipline.
== The Outcome of the Wounds ==
[[File:woundedsavage station1862.jpg|thumbnail|350px250px|left|Wounded soldiers at Savage Station, 1862. Estee would have endured similar conditions]]
Lewis Armistead was wounded only yards from his long-time friend, General Winfield Scott Hancock. The two attended West Point together and served alongside one another at several military posts in the West. Hancock remained loyal to the Union while Armistead chose to honor his home in Virginia and was commissioned in the Confederate Army. Both men were wounded during Pickett’s charge on July 3, 1863. Physically, and following amputation, Armistead's prognosis was excellent. His psychological distress at the time of his injury may have greatly contributed to his demise.
