Suppose a soldier survived a battle with bullets in their legs, was found in the field among the dead after the battle, and had both of their legs amputated at a field hospital in a life saving measure? If they survived the amputation, what happened to them from there? How did they get home if they could no longer use a horse, being legless? Even if they were carried onto a train, not everyone lived close enough to a train station. Were they escorted by military personnel from the train all the way back to their family home possibly miles away? Did the Confederate and Union armies write to the soldier's families and tell them where to pick them up on arrival from a train or that they needed to travel all the way to the location the soldier was to get them? If the soldiers were in a hospital hundreds of miles from their home, that would mean a difficult trip for their families to come get them, let alone their return journey. Was the crippled soldier supposed to find their own way back home, their family not even alerted?
I'm also more curious how this occurred in 1861 in a less developed area like western Missouri around the start of the war, if the year makes a difference in how it was handled.