--Confederate ingenuity is never at a loss.
The head and trunk of a man deprived of one or more limbs will furnish the wisdom and ardor of a perfect
Hercules.
The means of activity can be acquired by art. A regular service has been organized in the
Confederacy for the supply from the most skillful makers in
Europe of artificial limbs and members, equipped with all the most cunning contrivances that modern ingenuity has devised to render them effective substitutes for living bone and muscle.
In the early part of last year an eminent staff surgeon in the Confederate army was dispatched to
London, and took up his quarters in the neighborhood of a skilled artist.
He came provided with models of the truncated members of a number of Confederate officers, spent several weeks in superintending the manufacture of a number of arms, legs, hands, &c., which were supplied
in sets of two or three each, that, amidst the perils of blockade-running, one at least should reach its destination in safety.
On one particular specimen of ingenuity particular care was bestowed, and the surgeon took charge of it himself, sewing it up in a waterproof easing, that it might survive the chances of being trow overboard to be rescued from the clutches of Federal chasers.
This was the identical limb — an "Anglesy leg," as it is called — which enabled
General Hood to take active service again, and assume the command of the army at
Atlanta.--
London Index.
