The minnie ball, a large caliber, slow moving projectile, did a large amount of damage when it struck bone or entered a torso cavity. Abdominial wounds from the .58 caliber were considered mortal and the bullet itself caused hollow organ damage like most surgeons had never seen. At the time of the civil war, surgery was primarily restricted to extremity surgery. Unlike the movies, most amputations were performed under anesthesia, chloroform usually, as ether was too dangerous to store and handle in the field.

A good operator could perform a typical upper arm or above knee amputation in 10 to 15 minutes. If a bone was broken by a minnie ball it was typically shattered, (in todays lingo, an open cominuted or compound fracture) and if the wound was contaiminated with carried in cloth and other debries or the projectile itself was not removable in one piece, amputation was the salvage surgery of the day. Many surgeons were called "butcher's" due to the high number of amputations but as Letterman (as in name sake of the armed services pathology center) so aptly put it, the surgeons saved more lives than they cost. In fact, about 80% of the wounded that reached a field hospital served by a honest to goodness surgeon survived. As the war proceeded, medicine advanced and more doctors became better operators. Practice makes perfect. At least one reference indicates the confederate army had the sum total of 27 surgeons at the begining of the war with the Union army only naming about 100 or so. The civil war is one of the best medically documented conflicts we have, superseded only by the recent Iraqi conflict.

Part of the survivabilty of the guerilla war in Missouri had to do with the relatively small caliber and low velocity of weapons used by both sides, both were badly armed particularly in the early half of the war. Handguns threw more bullets and were the most popular close in weapon but projectiles were smaller and carried a smaller powder charge. This directly affected their mortality risk. I suspect Taylor was struck by a rifle wound in the upper lower arm or elbow region perhaps as high as 2 inches above the elbow with significant bone damage.

John R