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 at Mother’s right and opposite to me. During dinner he raised his wine glass to Mother, and said, “Madam, you wish us success?” “Sir,” she answered with grave dignity, “I am a Southern woman.” He looked at her with utter amazement, then said, “And you have sons in the Confederacy?” … “Four,”(she replied) and then with a sudden flash of spirit, “and I wish they were fifty and I were leading them.”…General Lyon arose and took her hand as he said, “I hope no trouble is at hand for so brave a woman.” He was killed the next day…'
Louisa Cheairs McKenny Sheppard – A Confederate Girlhood

Lucy prepared another feast in celebration of the Confederate victory; however, the festivities soon faced the reality of war as the Campbell home was converted into a hospital.

"Our house was now a hospital. I don’t know how many men we had, but there were cots and pallets everywhere, filled with Union and Confederate men, many of whom were past all aid."
Louisa Cheairs McKenny Sheppard – A Confederate Girlhood

The family’s Southern ties necessitated their flight from the Ozarks. Lucy remained in Springfield, while Lulu and others began the treacherous journey to her Uncle Jack’s plantation in Mississippi. In the spring of 1863, the Yazoo, Tallahatchie and Mississippi Rivers flooded bringing diseases and destruction to the family’s plantation. Lulu wrote of federal gunboats approaching through floating livestock carcasses, uprooted trees and buildings. Eventually the family left the plantation, and headed for Arkansas. Lulu briefly visited her father in Texas, but ultimately returned to Lucy in Arkansas. Lulu’s cousins were also stationed in Arkansas, and she commented on the condition of the men.

"The army in Arkansas was in terrible shape. They lacked for every necessity, but their most crying need was for quinine, for nearly all of them had malaria…"
Louisa Cheairs McKenny Sheppard – A Confederate Girlhood

Lucy sought to assist both the Confederate cause and her sons, as she traveled to St. Louis to procure medicine. Her son Junius, the lone Union man in the family, lived in St. Louis and helped her acquire the quinine. Lucy sewed the medicine into her petticoats, and arrived back in Arkansas in January 1865. While Lucy ventured to St. Louis, Lulu made socks, bandages, and supply “bundles” to support the army. Her efforts were honorable and courageous as supplies of all kinds were limited.

"We had not cloth of any kind, except our homespuns. …There were no shoes…We never suffered for food, though there were no luxuries. Coffee had been gone for a long time, and we used various substitutes of parched and ground grain, or squares of dried sweet potato. We had wheat flour but it was coarse and poorly ground, so that it had to be bolted through muslin cloths to make…bread or cake…. molasses sufficed for 'sweetening'."
Louisa Cheairs McKenny Sheppard – A Confederate Girlhood

Certainly, the hardships Lulu and her family faced were not nearly as difficult as those encountered by families with lesser means. Her story, however, is indicative of the resilient spirit exemplified by so many “Rebel women.” At the War’s end, Lucy was determined to return home; however, Springfield in 1865 was very different from when she left.

"(The Campbell home) was overrun with all sorts of riff-raff who had dribbled into town during the war and who had, in our absence, taken possession of the house. Of course everything was in a fearful state of dirt and disrepair. Our taxes had been paid every year by our Union friends, one of them my future father-in-law. While the Big House was being put in order, Mother lived in one of the servant’s houses… Mother had worked, as always, with all her strength, on the task of reclaiming her property, living in discomfort in that poor little house…"
Louisa Cheairs McKenny Sheppard – A Confederate Girlhood

Eventually Lucy became ill and succumbed to pneumonia. Lulu did not return to Springfield until 1869. There, she met a friend of her young uncle, and they were married within the year. Louisa Cheairs McKenny Sheppard wrote A Confederate Girlhood as a recollection of her youthful adventures and a tribute to her beloved grandmother.

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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 inadequacy for the big task of supplementing the eleven dollar monthly wages of privates. The task was accordingly turned over to the city which continued throughout the war to pay special benefits, not exceeding two dollars a week, to the needy families of volunteers. The high point in these payments was reached in November, 1864, when 900 such families registered for assistance.

Introduction of Bounties
The community's determination to rely on volunteers introduced a new type of subsidy in the form of bounties. Private bounties appeared in the first months, and before the close of the first year the city likewise assumed this function. Starting with $100 for each enlistee in the fall of 1861, Rochester was paying $300 for each man a year later. The county took over the bounty payments for a time in 1863, but when a draft was threatened the next year, the city re-entered the field; $600 bounties were paid that fall, as well as a few private bounties ranging as high as $1,500. Although these payments were in no sense charity payments, the expenditure of an estimated $700,000, widely distributed among the 5,000 recruits raised in Rochester, considerably affected the relief problem. As most of the bounties were paid in lump sums, the recipients tended to spend them on equipment or other immediate uses, thus contributing to price inflation and reducing the real value of the weekly benefits that were to follow.

New emergency appeals, the Ladies Hospital Relief Association and the Christmas Bazaar
One tragic result of the frightful battles along the Potomac and elsewhere during the war was the multiplication of widows and orphans-a long-term problem of sober significance. Moreover, the hardships of famine sufferers in Kansas and especially those in Ireland, and the victims of a fire in Troy, stirred a response in Rochester which resulted in contributions totaling $7,000 during war years. But of course the most generous response was to the call of the Soldier's Aid Society for hospital supplies to alleviate the suffering of sick and wounded soldiers. The city's first great bazaar was held during Christmas week in 1863 for the benefit of the wounded. More than $10,000 was collected in its numerous booths, and this sum, together with the shipments of clothing, bandages and medical supplies sent off at various periods throughout the war, was placed at the disposal of the United States Sanitary Commission for use in battle areas.

Local Hospitals
It was during the war that the utility of local hospitals finally became apparent in Rochester. When the Federal Government began in 1862 to send small detachments of wounded to St. Mary's Hospital, those who had opposed the City Hospital as a useless extravagance were silenced, and its friends, led by the Female Charitable Society, were able to rush its completion at a cost of $14,000, raised largely from charitable sources. The ladies of various Protestant churches undertook to furnish the several wards with a total of 200 beds, and the hospital was finally ready for use in January, 1864. St. Mary's had meanwhile received community-wide support in its drive for funds to erect a new wing, increasing its bed capacity to 400. By May, that year, 400 wounded were receiving care in the two Rochester hospitals, and 2,000 sick and wounded soldiers were thus accommodated before the close of the Civil War.

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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. As a statement of the values to which physicians commit themselves individually and collectively, the Code is a touchstone for medicine as a professional community. It defines medicine’s integrity and the source of the profession’s authority to self-regulate.

At the same time, the Code of Medical Ethics is a living document, evolving as changes in medicine and the delivery of health care raise new questions about how the profession's core values apply in physicians' day to day practice. The Code links theory and practice, ethical principles and real world dilemmas in the care of patients.

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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 the teaching and practice of urology in pre-Civil War Charleston, to better understand the early development of the specialty.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:
We reviewed graduate medical student dissertations from the historical archives of the Medical University of South Carolina from 1824 to 1860. In addition, we accessed and reviewed the records of the Medical Society of South Carolina, The Charleston Medical Journal and Review, and The American Urological Association Centennial History 1902 to 2002 volumes 1 and 2.

RESULTS:
These historical documents and dissertations review in depth various medical conditions, diagnoses and treatments in pre-Civil War Charleston. Topics such as urolithiasis, urethral stricture, stone composition and hydrocele are a few of the areas considered. Review of these documents fosters insight into the evolving diagnosis and treatment of several urological conditions. Some treatments such as the use of tobacco for urinary retention have fallen out of favor, while others such as the surgical repair of vesicovaginal fistula are still practiced.

CONCLUSIONS:
The history of urology in pre-Civil War Charleston and at the Medical University of South Carolina demonstrates an advanced understanding of urological diseases and the technology designed to treat them with a distinctly European influence.

From: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Image: Catheters and sounds from a Tiemann Civil War military urology set

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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. The USVMA was renamed the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) in 1898.

In 1900, Liautard returned to France and the American Veterinary Review changed its name to the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA); it featured contributions from noted veterinary practitioners in what was rapidly becoming a recognized medical profession. By 1913, the AVMA had grown to 1,650 members. Membership requirements were revised so that being a graduate of a three-year, accredited veterinary school became mandatory (prior to this, self-proclaimed practitioners could be members of the association).

Four women graduated from U.S. Veterinary schools in 1915 and began practicing.

The American Journal of Veterinary Research joined JAVMA in 1940 and the publication evolved to become the primary forum for veterinarians to publish basic and clinical research studies.

Today, the American Veterinary Medical Association has more than 86,500 members. These professionals use their skills to care for the health and well being of humans, animals, and the environment.

In addition to caring for the nation's more than 70 million dogs, 80 million cats, 11 million birds, 7 million pet horses, and millions of other companion animals, veterinarians serve in medical research, prevention of bio- and agroterrorism, and food safety and contribute greatly to scientific breakthroughs throughout the world.

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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 in 1861 Barton returned to Washington, D.C. and, when the Civil War broke out, she was one of the first volunteers to appear at the Washington Infirmary to care for wounded soldiers. After her father’s death late in 1861, Barton left the city hospitals to go among the soldiers in the field. Her presence—and the supplies she brought with her in three army wagons—was particularly welcome at the Battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg) where overworked surgeons were trying to make bandages out of corn husks. Barton organized able-bodied men to perform first aid, carry water, and prepare food for the wounded. Throughout the war, Barton and her supply wagons traveled with the Union army giving aid to Union casualties and Confederate prisoners. Some of the supplies, like the transportation, were provided by the army quartermaster in Washington, D.C., but most were purchased with donations solicited by Barton or by her own funds. (After the war she was reimbursed by Congress for her expenses.)

In 1863, Clara Barton would travel to the Union controlled coastal regions around Charleston, South Carolina. On July 14, 1863 Barton moved from Hilton Head Island to Morris Island to tend the growing number of sick and wounded soldiers - a list that would greatly expand after the failed Union assault on Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863.

Later in the Morris Island campaign, Clara Barton, working out of her tent, would seek to address the growing problem of sickness on the island by passing out fresh food and mail to the troops in the trenches.  Despite her great efforts, Barton herself would become gravely ill and would be evacuated to Hilton Head island.

"We have captured one fort - Gregg - and one charnel house - Wagner - and we have built one cemetery, Morris Island.  The thousand little sand-hills 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 the toll-worn gallant dead who sleep beside."
- Clara Barton on Morris Island

In January 1865, Barton returned to the North when her brother and nephew died. In March, President Abraham Lincoln appointed her General Correspondent for the Friends of Paroled Prisoners. Her job was to respond to anxious inquiries from the friends and relatives of missing soldiers by locating them among the prison rolls, parole rolls, or casualty lists at the camps in Annapolis, Maryland. To assist in this enormous task, Barton established the Bureau of Records of Missing Men of the Armies of the United States and published Rolls of Missing Men to be posted across the country. It was at her insistence that the anonymous graves at Andersonville prison were identified and marked.

In 1869 Clara Barton traveled to Geneva, Switzerland as a member of the International Red Cross. In 1880 the American Red Cross was established, the culmination of a decade of work by Barton. She served as the organization’s first president until 1904 and continued her tradition of philanthropy as a volunteer in Cuba during the Spanish-American War.

Clara Barton died in 1912 at the age of ninety-one.

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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, 1862. The Confederate Medical department had to begin from scratch.

Contrary to popular belief, nineteenth century military medicine was not always crude and ineffective. Lack of preparedness was the foremost problem, and it was responsible for much otherwise unnecessary suffering. The Civil War brought important advances in both organization and technique. While shortages often crippled the Confederacy’s efforts, by the end of the conflict the medical treatment available to Union soldiers was probably the best in the world. It gave sick and injured soldiers a greater opportunity of recovery than in any previous war.

With the outbreak of war civilian doctors entered the ranks of the Northern and Southern forces in large numbers. While some had served only an apprenticeship with an experienced practicing physician, formal medical education was becoming common. Diploma mills existed, but so did an increasing number of respected medical schools, such as the McDowell Medical College in St. Louis. By modern standards the curriculum in even the best schools was surprisingly brief lasting two years, with the second year being merely a repeat of the first. Not surprisingly, the quality of military surgeons differed considerably. Late in 1861 the U.S. Army Medical Department began giving examinations to weed out unqualified physicians. The Confederacy soon took similar and perhaps even more rigorous steps.

Education and peacetime practice did little to prepare physicians to treat the mass casualties of war. The border troubles labeled “Bleeding Kansas” in the Eastern press gave Missouri a reputation for violence, yet prior to the Civil War relatively few physician within the state ever treated a gunshot wound or performed more than minor surgery, much less attempted the amputation of a limb. The same was true elsewhere. Moreover, once in uniform, few military surgeons considered it to be their duty to address the basic requirements to keep the men healthy to fight, such as proper sanitation, food, and shelter. Civilian organizations, often labeled “sanitary commissions,” sprang up to address these needs, but in Missouri the dynamics of the conflict limited these to the Union side. St. Louis became the center of the regional Western Sanitary Commission, as well as the local St. Louis Ladies Union Aid Society and parallel Colored Ladies Union Aid Society.

In Union and Confederate volunteer service, and in the Missouri State Guard, regulations authorized each regiment a surgeon, an assistant surgeon, a hospital steward with the rank of sergeant major, and several enlisted men serving as orderlies. Each morning at “sick call,” the surgeons listened to soldiers’ complaints and provided treatment. The steward was responsible for supplies and medicine chests. Orderlies were jacks-of-all-trades, men who showed an interest and aptitude in nursing and were appointed by the surgeon. During combat the medical team set up a field hospital close to the action. The assistant surgeon usually manned an aid station treating wounded at the edge of the battlefield until they could be removed to the surgeon’s care at the field hospital. Near the end of 1861 the Union army began consolidating regimental hospitals into division and corps hospitals to handle larger bodies of troops more efficiently, but an Ambulance Corp was not formed until well into 1862. Prior to that wounded were brought from the field either by comrades or by musicians from the regiment’s band, if it had one.

Gunshots accounted for 94 percent of the recorded battle wounds. Injuries from artillery projectiles were less common, while bayonet and sword wounds were quite rare. The most common wounds were to the extremities, with almost equal involvement of the arms and legs. In combat involving muzzle-loading weapons, limbs often remained vulnerable even when a soldier fired from a protected position. Non-extremity wounds almost always resulted in death on the battlefield. Penetrating gunshots to the abdomen or head were about 90 percent fatal, those to the chest about 60 percent.

Contrary to myth, Civil War doctors did not perform excessive numbers of amputations because they were ignorant of, or unwilling to consider, alternatives. Doctors usually performed amputations in cases involving the penetration of a joint, a compound fracture, substantial tissue or bone destruction, or evidence of infection (gangrene). They had to consider the fact that survival rates were much greater when amputations were performed within the first twenty-four hours of injury. This was called primary amputation. Secondary amputations were performed after the 24 hour period and resulted in higher mortality and morbidity caused by bacteria having more time to enter the open wound. Surgeons were aware that the presence of foreign material such as wadding, clothing fragments, or dirt in wounds increased the likelihood complications. Tragically, it was not until just after the war ended that European physician Joseph Lister, using the work of Louis Pasteur, demonstrated the role that bacteria played in wound infection, too late to save the lives of tens of thousands of men in uniform.

One of the war’s most important advances was the popularization of anesthesia. Military surgeons employed ether and chloroform, which had first come into use at the time of the Mexican War, 1846-1848. Both drugs had drawbacks. Highly flammable ether, which took sixteen minutes to take effect, posed a danger when operations were performed by candle or lantern light. Chloroform was nonflammable and worked in about nine minutes, but improper application could result in death. During those nine minutes the patient passed through an excitable stage and might need to be restrained. The process was poorly understood by laymen observers and led to the myth that many operations were preformed without any anesthetic at all, which was rarely the case. Recovering patients received either morphine or opium, which were effective painkillers but addictive.

Although more than a thousand military engagements occurred in Missouri, disease killed over twice as many men as bullets. Infections spread rapidly in overcrowded camps. Measles, mumps, rubella, and chicken pox ran rampant, particularly among newly-enlisted soldiers from rural areas who lacked immunities from prior exposure. But even more fatalities resulted from dysentery and diarrhea contracted due to unsanitary conditions. The Western Sanitary Commission worked tirelessly throughout the war to improve conditions in camps, hospitals, and prisons. Science largely ignorant of the cause of diseases and most medications were ineffective. Malaria was the only major disease combated successfully, being treated with quinine, a drug made from the bark of the Peruvian Cinchona tree.

Because of its rail and river connections St. Louis became the most important center for military medicine west of the Appalachian Mountains. Only Washington, D.C., and Richmond, Virginia, played a greater role during the war. The process was driven by necessity. At the beginning of the war there were only two military hospitals in Missouri, one at the St. Louis Arsenal and the other at Jefferson Barracks, south of the city along the Mississippi River. These and the city’s civilian hospitals were overwhelmed by the casualties from early war battles, but before the conflict ended the city was home to fifteen military hospitals and a fleet of hospital boats serving the war effort in the Mississippi River valley.

The campaigning and fighting in the Ozarks, with its poor roads, rugged hills, and lack of adequate water and rail connections, posed particular medical challenges. Early in the war almost all sick and wounded were treated locally, often with the help of the civilian population. The impact on communities could be devastating, as the case of Springfield demonstrates. When Union forces under Nathaniel Lyon occupied the city in July 1861, they set up military hospitals in tents and buildings to accommodate their routine sick personnel. When Lyon was defeated at the nearby battle of Wilson’s Creek on August 10, 1861, the victorious Southerners occupied Springfield and shifted hundreds of casualties (Union as well as their own) to the town, taking over public spaces, churches, and private homes. Men and women came from miles around to help. O. A. Williams, a surgeon for the Missouri State Guard, wrote to John Willsen about the conditions in Springfield shortly after the Battle of Wilson’s Creek.

Headquarters, General Hospital, Missouri State Guard, Springfield, Missouri

Dear John –

I suppose ere this you have had correct information in regard to the fight so I will say nothing about it. I am not in good health – nor in very good spirits. I can see no end to this infernal war… Springfield presents rather a gloomy appearance, every house nearly has been converted into a Hospital. The wounded are generally well. There has been a great many amputations. I have taken off a good many legs and arms – until I am sick and tired… We get nothing to drink (and) little to eat… Give my love to Mary… (and) respects to… friends and tell my enemies to go to hell…

Yours fraternally,

O.A. Williams, Assistant Surgeon

Witnesses reported that the streets literally stank from the odor of wounded and dying soldiers. Weeks passed before the situation was under control. The Federal wounded that remained were eventually moved to St. Louis by rail road from Rolla. By this time smaller hospitals had been opened at intervals along the rail line in Missouri from Sedalia and Rolla to St. Louis to take care of the less severely wounded and avoid overcrowding of St. Louis Hospitals. The damage to Springfield civilian property was great; the emotional and psychological impact on families whose homes became treatment facilities is impossible to calculate. Springfield changed hands six times during the course of the conflict and was for much of the war a major Union supply depot and hospital center. By mid-war half of the homes were destroyed and more than half of the population was refugees.

The much larger Battle of Pea Ridge, fought on March 7-8, 1862, only a short distance into Arkansas from the Missouri border, was an even greater disaster. Union medical preparations were minimal, while the attacking Confederates made almost none. Although the Union forces were victorious, it proved impracticable to shift the severely wounded from the battlefield to the expanding facilities in St. Louis. There were no navigable rivers nearby, and the closest rail line to St. Louis began at Rolla, 240 miles from the battlefield. The roads to Springfield, the next best option, were severely rutted and without bridges, while guerrillas roamed the surrounding countryside. As a consequence, the closer small communities Cassville and Keitsville, Missouri, were virtually transformed into hospitals. When the news of the battle reached St. Louis the Western Sanitary Commission worked day and night packing medical supplies and shipping them as fast as possible to the scene of the crisis.

As the war in the Ozarks progressed both the military and the Western Sanitary Commission became better at averting crises by anticipating needs and stockpiling supplies at key points. One of these key points was Springfield. Large quantities of medical supplies were stockpiled in that city in anticipation of further battles in the western Ozarks. The Union victory on December 7, 1862, at Prairie Grove in northwestern Arkansas produced over 1,000 wounded, and once again poor roads and the threat of guerrillas made evacuations impracticable. On this occasion, however, Sanitary Commission agents in Springfield immediately dispatched two ambulances and stockpiled medical supplies to Fayetteville, which became the main treatment center. They sent additional supplies within ten days.

By January of 1862 St. Louis emerged as the center of military medicine not only in Missouri but also in the Mississippi River Valley. Over crowding of hospitals in St. Louis had been considerably decreased by treating less serious cases in camp and regimental hospitals and sending more serious cases to the city. Convalescing patients were also sent to camps outside of the city. St. Louis had 2,300 beds in the general hospital and 200 to 300 more in the City and Sister’s of Charity Hospitals. Separate isolation hospitals were established for smallpox patients and another for measles. During the spring of 1863 military medicine in St. Louis expanded even further. Medicines, hospital stores, dressings, bedding and clothing were being manufactured in a government facility in St. Louis. A large amphitheatre in the old fairgrounds in Benton Barracks was turned into a 2,500 bed hospital second only to the Lincoln Hospital in Washington which had a 2,575 bed capacity.

By 1864 there were military hospitals located in Jefferson City, Springfield, Kansas City Missouri, and Rolla (at the terminus of the SW branch of the Pacific R.R.) along with Tipton and Sedalia. In southeast Missouri a hospital was located at the southern terminus of the Iron Mountain RR in Ironton. Serious wounded from battle of Springfield through Price’s Raid in the fall of 1864 could be taken care of in various hospitals in Kansas City, around the Ozarks or to one of the hospitals in St. Louis. Battles in isolated areas in the Ozarks such as Newtonia (September 30, 1862 and October 28, 1864) resulted in the wounded being cared for in buildings or tent hospitals surrounding the battlefield.

As had been true for the previous two years, Missouri State Guard and Confederate forces operating within the state provided only the most basic medical services. They setup temporary makeshift hospitals in nearby structures during battles, but as they failed to control any territory permanently their serious wounded were left behind. The highly mobile Southern guerrillas and opportunistic bushwhackers who roamed the state until the very end of the war relied heavily on friendly civilians for care of their sick and wounded. The effectiveness of this care would be difficult to determine. Unfortunately, it led to retaliation upon the civilians by the Unionists.

The fortunes of war were such that the story of medical care in Missouri is really the story of the Union side. Thanks to the efforts of the federal and state governments, civilian relief organizations, and civilian volunteers, medical care in Missouri equaled that of any other state during the conflict. Although authorities were caught off guard and almost overwhelmed by events in 1861, medical care increased steadily from 1862 onwards, until by war’s end it was state of the art for that period of history.

IMAGE: Civil War Amputation Kit, the Civil War Museum at Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield.

FROM: Ozarkscivilwar.com

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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 after his marriage to Mary Thomson in 1856, when the couple decided to move to Washington, D.C. Shortly after the onset of the Civil War, Baumgras enlisted in the Union Army, where he initially served as a surgical draftsman, then went on to assume the position of Assistant Professor of Drawing at the United States Naval Academy.[2] His involvement in several social clubs connected Braumgras with the most important members of Washington’s art world; he was invited to join the Literary Society of Washington and the Society of Washington Artists, and in 1859 was asked to exhibit at the Washington Art Association. The level of skill and magnificent coloring demonstrated in his still life paintings garnered the attention of the faculty at both the Columbian College (now George Washington University) and Gallaudet University, resulting in brief tenures at each institution as the resident Professor of Art.

Baumgras spent a short time in California during the early 1870s, which distinctly impacted his artistic style; Yosemite Valley (1879), his largest landscape painting, and Bighorn Sheep (1875) depict western landscapes infused with brightened colors and light. In 1877, Baumgras revisited Washington, D.C., where he once again participated in the growing art scene by contributing to the creation of the Washington Arts Club, which was founded with the intent to cultivate the fine arts and promote social interaction among its members.[3]

In 1877, Baumgras relocated permanently to Chicago, where he remained active for several years. As a faculty member at the University of Illinois he taught drawing until 1879. He also enjoyed success at the Chicago Interstate Industrial Exposition, were his works were exhibited in 1885 and 1887.[4] Upon his return to Washington in 1900, Baumgras submitted himself to be considered for a curatorial position at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and justified his qualification by his wide range of experience and interaction with the “history of art and the leading artists of the past half-century of this country and art abroad.”[5]

The final years of Peter Baumgras’ life were spent in Chicago, where he passed away in 1904.

II. Chronology

1827 Born January 4 in Hamburg, Bavaria, Germany
1844–46 Studies at Düsseldorf Academy
1847–52 Studies at Munich Royal Academy, under Freidrich Kaulbach and Karl Schorn
1853 Immigrates to Syracuse, NY
1856 Marries Mary Thompson
1857 Moves to Washington, DC
Serves as surgical draftsman of Union Army
Assistant Professor of Drawing at US Naval Academy
Professor of Art at Columbian University (now George Washington University) and at Gallaudet University
1871–75 Travels to California, where he is employed as an artist by Louis Agassiz
1877 Founding member of The Washington Art Club and serves on the Executive Board
1877 Settles in Chicago, Illinois
Hired as Professor of Art at University of Illinois
1900 Applies for the Curatorship of the Corcoran Gallery
1904 Passes away in Chicago

III. Collections

Gallaudet University, Washington, D.C.
George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
Lincoln Museum at Ford's Theater, Washington, D.C.
McLellan Lincoln Collection of Brown University, RI
New Haven Colony Historical Society, CT
New-York Historical Society, NY
Oakland Museum, CA

VI. Exhibitions

1859–60 Washington Art Association
1868 National Academy of Design
1872, 1877 San Francisco
1897, 1898, 1900 Art Institute of Chicago
1898 Boston Art Club
1983 National Museum of American Art

V. Memberships

1877 Washington Art Club (founding member)
1901–1903 Society of Washington Artists
The Literary Society of Washington

VI. Suggested Resources

Cosentino, Andrew. The Capitol Image: Painters In Washington 1800-1915. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983.
Pratt, Waldo S. A Forgotten American Portrait Painter: Peter Baumgras 1827–1904. Hartford, Connecticut: Privately printed, 1937.

VII. Notes

1. Peter Falk, Who Was Who in American Art: Artists Active between 1898 and 1947 (Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1999), 239.
2. Andrew Cosentino, The Capitol Image: Painters In Washington 1800-1915 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1983), 252.
3. Art Life In Washington: Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C. vol. 24 (Washington, D.C.: Historical Society of Washington, D.C., 1992), 174. March 26, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40067164
4. Kirsten M. Jensen, The American Salon: The Art Gallery at the Chicago Interstate Industrial Exposition, 1873–1890 (New York: City University of New York, 2007), 442.
5. Cosentino, 92.

IMAGE: Baumgras completed this watercolor while Tucker's wound was healing

FROM: questroyalfineart.com

Learn more about Civil War medical illustrators and artists at www.CivilWarRx.com.

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