William A. Hammond, Surgeon General

Compiled by James M. Phalen, Colonel, Medical Corps, U.S. Army retired WILLIAM ALEXANDER HAMMOND (Aug. 28, 1828 -Jan. 5, 1900), Surgeon General, April 25, 1862 - August 18, 1864, was born at Annapolis, Md., the son of Dr. John W. and Sarah (Pinkney) Hammond, members of two old Maryland families of Anne Arundel County.  When he was about five years old the family moved to Harrisburg, Pa., where his early education was completed at a local academy. He began the study of medicine at sixteen and at twenty was given the degree of M. D. by the medical department of the University of the City of New York.  After a year of internship in...

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Clara Barton: Heroine of Nursing and Record Keeping

Excerpted from: blog.tavbooks.com “We have captured one fort—Gregg—and one charnel house—Wagner—and we have built one cemetery, Morris Island. The thousand little sandhills that in the pale moonlight are a thousand headstones, and the restless ocean waves that roll and breakup on the whitened beach sing an eternal requiem to all the toll-worn gallant dead who sleep beside.” -Clara Barton, Morris Island Born in Massachusetts in 1821, Clara Barton grew up to be one of the most distinguished nurses in the United States. Perhaps best known for founding the American Red Cross, Barton also played a pivotal role during the Civil War—not only as...

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Anna Morris Ellis Holstein

From: blog.tavbooks.com Anna Morris Holstein may have been the last person you’d expect to see traveling with soldiers. She and her husband, William H. Holstein, were quite wealthy. But they still had a strong sense of duty. William had served in the Pennsylvania militia during Lee’s 1862 invasion. And when the couple witnessed the carnage at Antietam, they felt called to serve. Anna noted, “we have no right to the comforts of our home, while so many of the noblest of our land renounce theirs.” The couple enlisted with the US Sanitation Commission. Anna struggled with the grisly realities of war and later admitted that she was of little...

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The Army Medical Department Civilian Corps: A Legacy of Distinguished Service

By Major Kenneth M. Koyle, AMEDD Center of History and Heritage, 9 March 2011 Civilians have played a vital role in Army medicine from the very beginning. In fact, virtually all medical functions were provided by civilians in the first few decades of the Army’s existence. The history of civilian support to the Army Medical Department (AMEDD) is an integral and inseparable component of our overall medical history. On 27 July 1775 the Continental Congress established a medical department to provide care for the nascent Continental Army. Although it outlined a rudimentary system of care for the military, the legislation creating the medical...

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Surgeon James H. Thompson's Diary

From: milwaukeehistory.net James H. Thompson started his Civil War career as a surgeon in the 12th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment and was assigned in 1864 to the Point Lookout prisoner of war camp in Maryland. Thompson later served at the Soldiers’ Home and had a private practice in Milwaukee.  Among the items donated to the Milwaukee County Historical Society from this doctor was a small, worn, leather-bound journal with sixty-two colored pencil sketches of what life was like for a Confederate prisoner. It appears that one of the Confederate prisoners (“Johnny Reb J. J. O.”) gave this journal to Thompson sometime in 1864.  Why...

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Colonel John Shaw Billings: A Many-Sided Genius

By James M. Phalen, Colonel, U. S. Army, Retired The Army Medical Bulletin, Number 60, January 1942: Beyond question, the name of John Shaw Billings belongs with the most outstanding among the many gifted men who have held membership in the Army Medical Corps. Though his works may not be familiar to the present generation, at the time of his retirement from the Government service he was undoubtedly the foremost medical man of this country if not of the world. Certainly no other American physician ever attained the international prominence that Billings held in his last years at the Army Medical Library. He was born on March 12, 1838, on a...

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Lincoln's Last Hours

By Jill L. Newmark, 4-15-15 150 years ago on April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in a crowded theater in Washington DC. On April 15th he died and an autopsy was performed. Several doctors supported Lincoln in his last hours but no medical intervention could prevent his death and bystanders could only watch and wait. On the night of April 14, 1865, a lone assassin shot the President of the United States at point-blank range during an evening performance at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C.  That evening, John Wilkes Booth made his way into the theater and to the box where President Abraham Lincoln, his wife Mary Lincoln, and...

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Historian Sheds Light With African American Medical Contributions

by Bobby Jones, Staff Photojournalist, 2-3-15 On Feb. 7 [2015], The Surratts House Museum hosted an education tour revealing the plight and contributions of the African American medical community during the American Civil War, entitled “Within These Walls; African American Surgeons and Nurses,” who served during the War. Narrated by, Jill Newmark, exhibition specialist in the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine, (NLM) National Institutes of Health (NIH) Bethesda, the exhibition sheds light on the African American medical surgeons and nurses who treated the soldiers and slaves who fled to Contraband Hospital Camp...

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Celestial Sleuths Shed (Moon) Light on Death of Stonewall Jackson

From: forbiddennews.info One of the turning points of the U.S. Civil War occurred during the Battle of Chancellorsville, May 2, 1863, when Confederate Lieutenant General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson was mistakenly shot by his own troops and later died of complications from his wounds. His death deprived Confederate commander Robert E. Lee of his most daring and trusted general two months before the fateful Battle of Gettysburg. Almost from the day of Jackson’s wounding, historians have debated the central question: How could the soldiers of the 18th North Carolina regiment not recognize their famous general and gun him down? Now, on the...

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Army Medical Department Medal of Honor Recipient: Dr. Mary E. Walker

From:  history.amedd.army.mil and health.mil Citation: Whereas it appears from official reports that Dr. Mary E. Walker, a graduate of medicine, "has rendered valuable service to the Government, and her efforts have been earnest and untiring in a variety of ways," and that she was assigned to duty and served as an assistant surgeon in charge of female prisoners at Louisville, Ky., upon the recommendation of Major-Generals Sherman and Thomas, and faithfully served as contract surgeon in the service of the United States, and has devoted herself with much patriotic zeal to the sick and wounded soldiers, both in the field and hospitals, to...

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Army Medical Department Medal of Honor Recipient: Gabriel Grant

From:  history.amedd.army.mil and health.mil Citation: Removed severely wounded officers and soldiers from the field while under a heavy fire from the enemy, exposing himself beyond the call of duty, thus furnishing an example of most distinguished gallantry. Rank and organization: Surgeon, U.S. Volunteers. Place and date: At Fair Oaks, Va., 1 June 1862. Entered service at: New York. Born: Newark, N.J. Date of issue: 21 July 1897. Prior to the Civil War, Maj. Gabriel Grant, a prominent physician from Newark, N.J., served on a special health commission to battle the cholera epidemic then spreading throughout the city. At the outbreak...

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Army Medical Department Medal of Honor Recipient: Jacob F. Raub

From:  history.amedd.army.mil and health.mil Citation. Discovering a flank movement by the enemy, appraised the commanding general at great peril, and though a noncombatant voluntarily participated with the troops in repelling this attack. Rank and organization: Assistant Surgeon, 210th Pennsylvania Infantry. Place and date: At Hatchers Run, Va., 5 February 1865. Entered service at: Weaversville, Pa. Born: 13 May 1840, Raubsville Northhampton County, Pa. Date of issue: 20 April 1896. After he achieved his degree in medicine in 1864, Jacob Raub was appointed to assistant surgeon of the 210th Pennsylvania Volunteer. As part of the...

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Medical Historian Finds Dr. Harris

By Leah Montgomery, NC Central University, 6-30-14 Medical historian Margaret Humphreys discovered Dr. Joseph Dennis Harris in a handwritten report from the Civil War. She was looking through the United States Sanitary Commission papers during her year at the “clubhouse” — the National Humanities Center (NHC) in Research Triangle, NC. “When I began my research, he was an unknown figure in the history of Civil War medicine,” Humphreys said. “The fact that I was able to reconstruct his life history beginning with this enigmatic reference is a tribute to the modern tools of digitization, search engines and librarians especially, in the rediscovery...

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Toward an Ambulance Corps

From: history.amedd.army.mil Soldiers wounded in July 1861 at First Bull Run had to fend for themselves because there was a "pitiful absence of provision for the wounded." Ambulance drivers were generally either impressed soldiers or wagon and hack drivers pulled from the streets of Washington, and rumors of forthcoming roundups sent drivers fleeing from the city. Surgeons reported drivers who were insubordinate or drunk or who appropriated space inside the ambulances intended for blankets and food. As to the vehicles themselves, the Army had been forced to round up commercial wagons and hacks to serve as ambulances. Second Bull Run, the...

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Aged Woman Bares Secret of Youth; She was a Drummer Boy in Union Army

From: Logansport Pharos Tribune (Logansport, Indiana) Apr 11, 1921 OAKLAND, Cal. — For 58 years Mrs. Anna Glud, of this city, has nursed a romantic secret. And then, on her 68th birthday, with a family group about her, the white haired old lady revealed the amazing story of how, at the outbreak of the civil war, she had cut her hair, donned the uniform of a Union fighter and gone to the war as Tom Hunley a drummer boy. That she had not previously bared her secret was due partially to the fact that her family had been divided on the war issues and she waited for time to heal the wounds; partially because of a somewhat natural reluctance. But...

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Emerging Specialties

From: history.amedd.army.mil Outside the Union's Ambulance Corps, other specialists appeared during the Civil War. A remarkable example of hospital administration could be found on the Confederate side of the line. In Richmond, Sally Louisa Tompkins headed Robertson Hospital, which, staffed with Confederate Army physicians, had a mortality rate lower than any other in the city. Abuses by some private hospitals caused the Confederacy to pass a law restricting the treatment of Confederate soldiers to hospitals commanded by commissioned officers. Jefferson Davis desired to retain Tompkins' hospital, and thus Captain Tompkins became the only woman...

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