For Milagros

James Edward Hanger

This one's for you, Milagros.

You're just 3 years old as I write this in the spring of 2011, but in a few years you'll come to appreciate the story, so here goes:

Once upon a time -- a long, long time ago -- a boy who would grow up to be a hero was born on his family's plantation near Churchville in Augusta County, Virginia. James Edward Hanger was a bright child, curious by nature, and he did well in school. When he was 16, he left his home for the first time to study engineering at Washington College (now Washington and Lee College) in Lexington, where he worked hard.

But when a great war between the North and the South broke out in 1861, he left college and came back to Churchville to tell his parents he wanted to enlist. His parents supported the South, but they hoped their 18-year-old son would stay behind rather than fight.

When James persisted, his mother suggested that he consider joining the Churchville Cavalry, in which two of his brothers were already serving. The Cavalry was then stationed to the west, in Philippi. His mother sent him off to war carrying food and clothing that she had packed for him and her two other sons. This all happened in May of 1861, which was 150 years ago this very month.

An ambulance corps carrying supplies for the Confederacy happened to pass through his hometown on its way to Philippi, and James tagged along. He arrived on June 2, 1861, and formally enlisted in the Churchville Cavalry.

Young James spent the night in a barn with a small group of untrained and badly equipped Confederates. Little did they know that a force of Union soldiers numbering 4,500 had learned about the 750 Confederates in James's unit and were marching on Philippi.

James was on guard duty the next morning when the Union soldiers surprised the small Rebel unit and a fierce battle began. James headed for the stable to get his horse and join the fray. It was at that very moment, as James was mounting his horse, that a six-pound Union cannonball ricocheted inside the stable, striking James and shattering his left leg.

James was one of the first casualties in the first land battle of the Civil War.

In a puddle of his own blood and lying on a bed of hay, James was in agonizing pain, lapsing in and out of consciousness, as Union troops routed the small band of Confederates. It was hours before Federal troops found him and summoned a doctor. Using a barn door as a table and with no anesthetic, the doctor amputated young James's leg with crude knives and a saw, smoothing the bone's end, seven inches below his hip, with a file.

The amputation -- which is believed to have been the first during the Civil War -- was almost like medieval torture.

Against enormous odds, the operation was a success. After weeks of convalescence, James was fitted with a crude wooden leg, literally a straight wooden affair that ended in a peg. It was rigid, awkward and painful.

Two months after he left his home in Churchville, James returned to his family following a prisoner exchange. He disappeared into his second-floor bedroom and insisted that he not be disturbed. His mother took his meals up to him on a tray; an hour later the clean plates would be found sitting outside James's bedroom door.

Weeks passed, and the only indication that James was upstairs was the noise his family heard as his wooden peg thumped across the floor.

Now and then, James would make odd requests. He asked for barrel staves and willow wood from the trees that surrounded the plantation house. He'd leave wood shavings in a bucket outside his door. For three months he remained isolated.

Then James emerged from his bedroom and ambled downstairs with a smooth stride that seemed incomprehensible to the family. Using his engineering skills, James had created for himself a wooden leg with joints at the knee and the foot -- out of willow, metal and barrel staves. He had broken a technological barrier that had stood for thousands of years. A newspaper editor called James's prosthesis "one of the most complete legs we have ever seen."

Word spread of what James had done, heartening the many thousands of soldiers who underwent amputations. Soon James relocated to Richmond and began creating prosthetic limbs. At first, he offered his services at no charge, but as demand grew James formed a business. The Commonwealth of Virginia chose the J.E. Hanger Company to manufacture artificial limbs for its wounded Confederate veterans.

James's business prospered. Within 20 years, he had opened numerous branches, and soon his company began international operations with offices in London and Paris. James died in 1919, but his children carried on his work.

By the mid 1950s there were 50 Hanger offices in North America and 25 in Europe. Today, Hanger Prosthetics and Orthotics sees about 650,000 patients annually.

And you, Milagros, are one of them.

The Hanger company makes the lifts for your shoes that make it possible for you to run and play and keep up with your older brother, Carlos. The company also made a prosthesis for your amputated right arm -- the result of injuries sustained in a fire before your mother, my niece Terry, and her husband, James, adopted you. Right now, you think you can do more without that artificial arm than you can with it. But you're only 3 years old, and your attitude will no doubt change.

And so, as the country remembers the awful Civil War that killed and wounded more than 600,000 Americans 150 years ago, you, my sweet Milagros, can remember a Virginian, himself a victim of that war, who changed for the better the lives of so many, including you.

James Edward Hanger of Churchville, Virginia, was a hero whose life we can all celebrate.