Dennis A. Rasbach - I Am Perhaps Dying: The Medical Backstory of Spinal Tuberculosis Hidden in the Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham

The Medical Backstory of Spinal Tuberculosis

Hidden in the Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham

Praise for

The War Outside My Window: The Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham, 1860 - 1865 , edited by Janet E. Croon

A remarkable diary.... kept by a Georgia teenager coping with a fatal disease, it affords modern readers the best record I have encountered of the daily suffering and treatment of a terminally ill person during the Civil War era.... Alternately instructive, moving, and disturbing, this diary deserves a wide audience.

Gary W. Gallagher, Nau Professor of History, University of Virginia

The War Outside My Window is really a window looking into the thoughts and perceptions of a doomed teenager who watched the Confederacy die even as he was dying himself.

William C. Davis, author of Inventing Loreta Velasquez

There are between twelve and fifteen book awards related to the American Civil War. The War Outside My Window: The Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham, 1860-1865 will likely be nominated several times as a book of the year.

Rea Redd, the Civil War Librarian blog

A powerful, entertaining, and insightful glimpse into the world of the Civil War from an unlikely author.... Covering serious topics such as slavery and politics as well as the more light-hearted concerns of a young boy, Greshams account reminds us that the war touched those far removed from the battlefield even as the more routine aspects of life continued.

Caroline E. Janney, author of Remembering the Civil War

LeRoy Wiley Greshams short, painful life in Macon ended about the same time as the Civil War, but he left behind a legacy treasured by historians.

Macon Telegraph

LeRoy Wiley Gresham was a fascinating young man possessed of wit, insight, and eloquence, all while suffering from the ravages of a terminal disease. His diary is simultaneously fascinating, insightful, compelling, and tragic.... It deserves a wide audience well beyond the Civil War community.

Eric J. Wittenberg, award-winning Civil War historian

What do I know about diaries? Heres what I can say: You have never read anything like this. It will appeal to the armchair historian in you (particularly if youve ever dabbled in being a Civil War buff); It will appeal if you want an idea of what everyday life was like 150 years ago; Theres a medical case study, too. This combination of themes is impossible to find anywhere else. This wont be the easiest read you come across this year (whatever year it is that you come across it), but itll be one of the most compelling.

The Irresponsible Reader blog

In a tragic parallel to Greshams record of the demise of the Southern Confederacy, the invalid unknowingly documents his own painful path toward death.

Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star

Without the efforts of Croon, Savas, and Rasbach, LeRoy Greshams voice, which speaks as powerfully to us from the past as does that of Anne Frank, would have continued to be unheard. Readers will remember LeRoy long after the covers of the book have closed. As sad and difficult as this book is to read, it is definitely an important addition to the understanding of the Southern home front.

Meg Groeling, Emerging Civil War blog

LeRoys original diary manuscript, kept in the Library of Congress, has now been published as The War Outside My Window: The Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham, 1860-1865 . No other published account by an educated civilian male teenager (who was also terminally ill) exists.

Parade Magazine

LeRoy Greshams gritty diary demonstrates that bravery was not the sole province of fighting men during the Civil War.

Civil War Times magazine

The Medical Backstory of Spinal Tuberculosis

Hidden in the Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham

Dennis A. Rasbach, MD, FACS

2018 by Dennis A. Rasbach

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Rasbach, Dennis A., author. | Supplement to (work): Gresham, LeRoy

Wiley, 1847-1865. The War Outside My Window.

Title: I Am Perhaps Dying: The Medical Backstory of Spinal Tuberculosis

Hidden in the Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham / Dennis A. Rasbach.

Description: First edition. | California: Savas Beatie [2018] | Medical

supplement to The War Outside My Window: The Civil War Diary of LeRoy

Wiley Gresham, 1860-1865 / Janet Elizabeth Croon, ed. El Dorado Hills,

California: Savas Beatie, [2018]. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018019244| ISBN 9781611214505 (pbk: alk. paper) |

ISBN 9781940669892 (ebk)

eISBN 9781940669892 (ebk)

Mobi ISBN 9781940669892 (ebk)

Subjects: | MESH: Gresham, LeRoy Wiley, 1847-1865. | Tuberculosis, Spinaldiagnosis | Tuberculosis,

Spinalhistory | Delivery of Health

Carehistory | American Civil War | Personal Narratives as Topic | Georgia

Classification: LCC RC310 | NLM WE 11 AG4 | DDC 616.99/5009034dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018019244

First edition, first printing.

Savas Beatie LLC

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El Dorado Hills, CA 95762

Phone: 916-941-6896

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Savas Beatie titles are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more details, please contact Savas Beatie, P.O. Box 4527, El Dorado Hills, CA 95762, or you may e-mail us at for additional information.

Proudly published, printed, and warehoused in the United States of America.

To LeRoy Wiley Gresham,

who unwittingly left posterity one of the most
extraordinary medical accounts of life with tuberculosis in the nineteenth century,

and to

my publisher Theodore P. Savas,

whose heart was deeply touched by LeRoys story, and who felt compelled
to share it with the world.

Until the spring of 2017, I had never heard of LeRoy Wiley Gresham. Odds are you hadnt either.

Jan Croon, a former teacher and friend on social media living and working in northern Virginia, passed on a link to me of a 2012 article by Michael E. Ruane in the Washington Post entitled Invalid boys diary focus of Library of Congress Civil War exhibit. I receive articles like this almost daily, so I nearly skipped past it. What a mistake that would have been. I clicked the link and started reading. The lengthy story mesmerized me from the first few sentences.