Sketch of the field hospital where Gen. Jackson's left arm was amputated/NPS

A surgical kit more than 150 years old, the one thought to have been used to amputate the shattered left arm of Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, is to be displayed at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park in Virginia on Friday.

The fatal wounding of Gen. Jackson on May 2, 1863, is one of the most infamous cases of "friendly fire" in U.S. military history. The general and a small party were riding along the Old Mountain Road near Chancellorsville to scout the front lines. However, Confederate forces that heard his approach assumed Union troops were trying to attack and fired into the woods.

John Hennessy, the National Park Service's chief historian at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania, told the Traveler in 2010 that doctors who treated the general's wounds had little choice but to amputate the arm.

"At the time, of course, medical practice rightly deemed that the best treatment for most wounds of that nature was removal," Mr. Hennessy explained. "And so his arm was removed just below the left shoulder. The operation was done at a field hospital. In fact, we just located generally where that field hospital was, about a half-a mile east of Ellwood."

On Friday at 1 p.m., the National Park Service will unveil the surgical kit that belonged to Dr. Hunter McGuire, the medical director of Stonewall Jackson's Second Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia. In the early hours of May 3, 1863, Dr. McGuire amputated the left arm of Jackson at a field hospital three miles west of the battlefield, near the Wilderness Tavern. It has long been believed that this surgical kit is the one used by Dr. McGuire for that operation. 

The surgical kit is on loan to the National Park Service courtesy of the daughters of the late Joseph E. Grove, II. 

During the event, historian Frank O'Reilly will give a brief overview of the surgical kit and, after the unveiling, a short tour of the site of Jackson's wounding. The group will then adjourn to the site of the field hospital near Wilderness Tavern, where Jackson's amputation took place. There, at 2:30 p.m., Spotsylvania County and Virginia's Civil War Trails will unveil a new wayside exhibit to mark this long-forgotten site. Mr. O'Reilly will later go to the family cemetery at Ellwood, where Jackson's arm is buried.

The public is welcome at all these events, which are free. Please note that transport to each location is the responsibility of each attendee.