In Bodies in Blue: Disability in the Civil War North, Sarah Handley-Cousins brings the reader past the medical fascination and bare statistics of Civil War casualties and injuries to look at Civil War disability from a more social and cultural view. The amputated leg or empty sleeve were prominent symbols of Civil War disability and the sacrifice of Union soldiers, but Handley-Cousins moves past that more visible and often used disability to examine those injuries less visible and more hidden. In doing so she gives the reader a fuller and more human perspective on the lasting impact of the Civil War.