Louisa Cheairs McKenny Sheppard: A Confederate Girlhood

From: ozarkscivilwar.org Louisa Cheairs McKenny Sheppard, “Lou” or “Lulu,” was the fourth child of Talitha and E.D. McKenny. Talitha died during Louisa’s birth in 1848, and she was raised by her grandmother Louisa “Lucy” Terrell Cheairs Campbell after her father moved to Texas. Lulu was twelve when the War began, and she recalled the impact it had on Springfield. ' The day before the Battle of Wilson’s Creek, Mother (was told) General Lyon and some of his staff (were coming) to dinner. She agreed and at once saw to the preparation of one of those dinners for which she was famous. General Lyon was a rough looking man with good manners. He sat...

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Financing Volunteers and their Dependents

(text adapted from Rochester History, Vol. IX. April, 1947 Nos. 2 & 3 "Historic Origins of Rochester's Social Welfare Agencies", by Blake McKelvey) From: libraryweb.org Wages and Benefits Within the first week after the attack on Fort Sumter, a Volunteer Relief Committee was established and a fund of $36,000 subscribed to aid the dependents of volunteers. Weekly benefits, ranging up to four dollars per family, were distributed in the early months from the first payments on these pledges. However, as the call for new regiments arrived and the long-range character of the war became evident, the Relief Committee was forced to recognize its...

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History of AMA Ethics

From: ama-assn.org In 1847 the American Medical Association revolutionized medicine in the United States. Members of the newly formed organization, meeting in Philadelphia as the first national professional medical organization in the world, dedicated themselves to establishing uniform standards for professional education, training, and conduct. They unanimously adopted the world's first national code of professional ethics in medicine. For the more than 160 years since, the AMA's Code of Medical Ethics has been the authoritative ethics guide for practicing physicians. The Code articulates the enduring values of medicine as a profession....

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Urology in Pre-Civil war Charleston

By Hamilton JN1, Rovner ES, Turner WR., J Urol. 2008 Aug;180(2):477-80. doi: 10.1016/j.juro.2008.04.023. Epub 2008 Jun 11. Abstract PURPOSE: With a history spanning more than 3 centuries, Charleston, South Carolina was one of the initial locations of urological teaching in the southern United States. The Medical University of South Carolina was chartered in 1823 and is the oldest medical school in the South. We reviewed the historical archives of the Waring Library of the Medical University of South Carolina, specifically the history of urological practice in the city, including doctoral dissertations from medical school students regarding...

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History of the American Veterinary Medical Association

From: avma.org Correspondence among practitioners along the East Coast led to a national convention of veterinary surgeons in 1863 in New York. The first meeting was attended by 40 delegates representing seven states: New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maine, Ohio and Delaware. Elected officers included the French-trained Dr. Alexandre Liautard, who headed the American Veterinary College in New York and was a dominant voice in the profession during this period. Under the direction of Liautard, New York became the unofficial headquarters of the USVMA and the American Veterinary Review was founded to be the voice of the profession....

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Clara Barton USA: Relief Organizer/Humanitarian (December 25, 1821-April 12-1912)

FROM: civilwar.org Born in Massachusetts in 1821, Clara Harlowe Barton was the youngest of six children. Barton supplemented her early education with practical experience, working as a clerk and book keeper for her oldest brother. She worked for several years as a teacher, even starting her own school in Bordentown, New Jersey in 1853. In 1854 she moved south to Washington, D.C. in search of a warmer climate. From 1854 to 1857 she was employed as a clerk in the Patent Office until her anti-slavery opinions made her too controversial. When she went home to New England she continued the charity works and philanthropy she had begun in Washington. Early...

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Civil War Era Medicine

Retired physician and long-time avocational Civil War historian, Thomas Sweeney, offers the following: The medical establishments within the U.S. Army and the nascent Confederate Army were almost totally unprepared for either the scope or duration of the conflict. The peacetime U.S. Army possessed only 113 physicians to care for more than 16,000 personnel scattered across the country. The Army’s Surgeon General, Dr. Thomas Lawson, was unable to think beyond the needs of small, frontier post hospitals. Fortunately for the Union, the Medical Department entered a new era under a relatively junior physician, Dr. William A. Hammond, on April 25,...

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Peter Gaumgras: Artist (1827-1904)

By Chelsea DeLay I. Biography II. Chronology III. Collections IV. Exhibitions V. Memberships VI. Suggested Resources VII. Notes I. Biography Born January 4, 1827, in the small town of Hamburg, Peter Baumgras was a German-born artist who later became known for his portrait and still life paintings. Baumgras first studied at the Düsseldorf Academy, and then went on to enroll at the Munich Royal Academy where he worked closely with Freidrich Kaulbach and Karl Schorn.[1] In 1853, shortly after his twenty-fifth birthday, Baumgras immigrated to the United States, settling in Syracuse, New York. Peter Baumgras’ career as an artist launched shortly...

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Horse Doctors Way Back When

By Tanya Hanson, September 15, 2010 Last week something fun and wonderful happened to me, way sooner than I expected it to. The release of Redeeming Daisy, the second inspirational novella about the Martin family of Hearts Crossing Ranch. So soon on the heels of Marrying Mattie, my sensual Western Historical released two weeks ago, I found myself not only in Seventh Heaven but also realizing that both heroes, some 130 years apart,  are horse doctors. So I reckoned a trip down Vet History Lane was a good topic for today. And anybody who comments gets in a name-draw for a pdf. copy of Redeeming Daisy. Okay. Long ago, the caretakers of...

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Annabell (Vorse) Clark: Until the Last Man

By Sidney Dreese During the Civil War the sick or wounded soldier who found himself in the hospital thought of it as home. The presence of female nurses made the soldiers feel better, and brought memories of mothers, sisters, and wives. The soldiers were appreciative of the kindness and care they received, and one such soldier was John B. Nicholson. Nicholson, the young lawyer, enlisted in 1862, at Menomonee, Wisconsin, and at the end of the year had been promoted to corporal. He was assigned to Company I, First Cavalry Wisconsin Volunteers. During the Franklin and Nashville Campaign, GEN John Bell Hood, C.S.A. advanced into Tennessee, and...

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Prostitution in Civil War Nashville

By Greg Segroves, 4-3-13   Trivia question. What city in the United States was the first to legalize prostitution? If you answered Las Vegas Nevada you are wrong. It was Nashville Tennessee in 1863. There are many things that can reduce the effectiveness of an Army in wartime. The use of alcohol, drugs, and sexually transmitted disease. That is in any era. More soldiers died from disease in the Civil War than died from bullets. Besides sexually transmitted disease men died from poor hygiene. The poor placement of latrines near a camp. Surgeons using dirty hands while treating wounds. Because of the Civil War medical officials began to...

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Division and Corps Hospitals

From: rochestergeneral.org The Medical Director of the Army of the Potomac, Dr. Jonathan Letterman, organized the Army into a system of Divisional hospitals in October 1862. This system of organization and management eventually spread throughout the Federal Army. Commanded by one medical officer rather than a line officer, it consisted of four operating teams of three surgeons each and numerous medical attendants and support staff. Each hospital carried sufficient medical supplies to house and care for a typical division of 7,000-8,000 personnel. Division surgeons performed more thorough examinations and treatment of wounds and emergency...

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Civil War Uniforms

By John Heiser, Gettysburg National Military Park The soldier of 1863 wore a wool uniform, a belt set that included a cartridge box, cap box, bayonet and scabbard, a haversack for rations, a canteen, and a blanket roll or knapsack which contained a wool blanket, a shelter half and perhaps a rubber blanket or poncho. Inside was a change of socks, writing paper, stamps and envelopes, ink and pen, razor, toothbrush, comb and other personal items. The amount of baggage each soldier carried differed from man to man. The southern soldier was highly regarded for traveling with a very light load basically because he did not have the extra items available...

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Soldiers' Food

By John Heiser, Gettysburg National Military Park By far, the food soldiers received has been the source of more stories than any other aspect of army life. The Union soldier received a variety of edibles. The food issue, or ration, was usually meant to last three days while on active campaign and was based on the general staples of meat and bread. Meat usually came in the form of salted pork or, on rare occasions, fresh beef. Rations of pork or beef were boiled, broiled or fried over open campfires. Army bread was a flour biscuit called hardtack, re-named “tooth-dullers,” “worm castles,” and “sheet iron crackers” by the soldiers who ate...

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Enduring Amputation

From: learnnc.org Walter Waightstill Lenoir to Thomas Lenoir, April 8, 1863, in the Lenoir Family Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dear Thomas My leg is finished at last, and I have been using it for over a week. It is, I suppose, as good as they make ‘em,’ but it is a wretched substitute for the one that I left in Virginia. It will take me a good while to become enough accustomed to it to know how it will do, as the skin and flesh where the weight is received will have to become hardened by degrees. At present I can’t walk near as well with it as I could with the one Rufus made me; but...

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Civil War Army Hospitals

From: learnnc.org Nearly 200,000 men lost their lives from enemy fire during the four years of the war. However, more than 400,000 soldiers were killed by an enemy that took no side — disease. From our modern perspective, medicine during the Civil War seems primitive. Doctors received limited medical education. Most surgeons lacked familiarity with gunshot wounds. The newly-developed minie ball produced grisly wounds that were difficult to treat. The Northern and Southern medical departments were ill-prepared for removing wounded men from the battlefield and transporting them to hospitals. Systems to provide hospital care for the sick and...

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Annabelle Vorse Clark, Civil War Nurse

From: news.mifflinburgtelegraph.com     The last of the nurses from Union County, Pa. found in Linda E. Snook’s book is Annabelle Vorse Clark. She was born in Lewisburg  in 1834 to Dr. Isaac Vorse and Elizabeth Reber. She attended the Institute at Lewisburg as did most of the other ladies who served from Union County in the Civil War.  She is listed there in 1856. She volunteered her service in July 1864 according to her first muster roll. She is listed as present in the U.S. General Hospital No. 3 at Nashville, Tenn. She served in this hospital until the end of the war and until all of the men were healed or sent home....

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History of Veterinary Medicine in Pennsylvania

From: en.wikipedia.org Early Veterinarians in Pennsylvania By the early 19th century, graduate veterinarians (most from London) had started to infiltrate the American cities; many of these became prominent practitioners. With the absence of veterinary schools, young men served an apprenticeship under the best of these English Veterinarians, and went on to become practitioners themselves. There were graduate medical doctors that used their knowledge to treat animals and there were some who treated “man and beast”. Most of the practitioners in the outlying areas were self-taught or not taught at all. When the process of printing became available,...

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Mercury and Water: Two Civil War Surgeons of the 148th Pennsylvania Volunteers

By Marsha J. Hamilton, Professor Emeritus, The Ohio State University On September 11, 1862, two very different physicians took a Pennsylvania Medical Review Board examination to qualify as army surgeons.  One was Dr. Uriah Q. Davis (1821-1887) of Milroy, the other was Dr. Alfred T. Hamilton (1836-1911) of Lewistown.   By an unusual coincidence, both received a copy of the same examination questions and both eventually served in the 148th Pennsylvania Volunteers.  These two civilian physicians understood the Union’s need for qualified surgeons to serve in the army, yet their approaches to medicine were radically different.  Dr....

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