"From Broomsticks to Battlefields"

Tells of PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury in the Civil War Biography of a Vicksburg and Corinth Veteran

May 16, 2010 -- Henry Clay Robinett, a graduate of Delaware Military College, distinguished himself with valor during two Civil War battles – the defense of “Battery Robinett” during the Battle of Corinth (October 3-4, 1862), where he was wounded with a musket ball that creased his scalp, and later during the siege of Vicksburg. While honorable, Robinett’s service seems little different from that of any other young man, North or South, who went off to war in 1861. At a glance, Robinett, who emerged from the war as a Major, would hardly seem a likely subject for a biography.

In "From Broomsticks to Battlefields," Bill Speer has used Robinett’s life to shed light upon several aspects of the American experience and society in the mid-nineteenth century that have not yet been fully explored, namely the treatment of TBI and PTSD sufferers. Continued

"From Broomsticks to Battlefields" After the Battle: The Story of Henry Clay Robinett