Civil War Surgeons Bleeder/Fleam, recovered at Ft. Harrison, VA

This is another nice piece being offered, it is an excavated 19th century medical bleeder (fleam). The body is brass and has steel blades that would open, now rusted shut,  it measures 3 ½” x 1 1/4”. I acquired it directly from the digger who recovered it years ago at Fort Harrison, Virginia.

On September 29, 1864, 2,500 Union forces over ran and captured Fort Harrison. It was the strongest Confederate Fort on the Richmond-Petersburg line. The next day Lee personally organized a major effort to retake the fort but failed.

Fort Harrison consisted of a semi-circle of earthen works facing the Union lines. When the Union forces took it over, they built earthen works facing the opposite direction, thus completing a circle. The Union renamed Fort Harrison to Fort Burnham, after the Union General killed in the September 29th attack.

The blades on the bleeder were used to pierce the skin to release “bad blood”. Many Civil War surgeons continued the practice of bloodletting, simply because they had no other answer for treating the wounded or ill soldier. It can safely be said that this practice never benefited the patient and, in many cases, did more harm by causing infection.

There are examples of this item in all the relic books as well as The Gettysburg National Battlefield Museum (see pictures). There is also one pictured in "Fighting Men of the Civil War - Confederacy" and in “Civil War Medical Instruments and Equipment”, by Dr. Gordon Dammann, also, there are excavated examples in “Civil War Relics & Artifacts, A Guide for the Historian, by Howard Crouch.

In my personal collection I have a bleeder that was found in Gettysburg, and it is in my book “Battle of Gettysburg – The Relics, Artifacts & Souvenirs”. It remains in solid condition and comes in the acrylic display case pictured.