Captain Sally Louisa Tompkins: Nurse and Officer in the Confederate Army

By Rebecca Beatrice Brooks, 6-11-13

Sally Louisa Tompkins was a Civil War nurse and the only officially commissioned female officer in the Confederate Army. The following are some facts about Sally Louisa Tompkins:

Sally Tompkins Childhood:
Born on November 9, 1833 into a wealthy Virginia family, Tompkins was the daughter of Colonel Christopher Tompkins and Maria Patterson and grew up on the family’s plantation in Poplar Grove, Mathews County. After Colonel Tompkins passed away, shortly before the outbreak of the war, Sally relocated to Richmond.

Sally Tompkins During the Civil War:
Following the first Battle of Bull Run, the Confederate government asked the citizens of Richmond to help nurse wounded soldiers. This prompted Tompkins to ask her friend, Judge John Robertson, who had recently moved out of Richmond to the countryside, if he would donate his three-story home near the corner of Third and Main Streets to the cause. He agreed and Tompkins turned the home into a 22 bed infirmary for wounded soldiers.

The Robertson Hospital officially opened on August 1 in 1861. The government assigned six surgeons and supplied only food, medicine and supplies to the hospital, with Tompkins covering the remaining expenses with her inheritance. Tompkins was strict about cleanliness in her hospital, which resulted in a 94 percent survival rate among her patients. Of the 1,300 wounded soldiers sent to her hospital, only 73 died.

According to the book “An Encyclopedia of Women at War,” in September of 1861, after it was discovered that a number of private hospitals were overcharging the Confederate government, President Jefferson Davis called for the closure of all private hospitals. This order ensured only military officials were allowed to run the remaining hospitals. Tompkins pleaded with the Confederate government to allow the Robertson Hospital to remain open, prompting them to take an unusual action:

“Tompkins, aided by William W. Camp, the assistant secretary of the treasury, appealed to the Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Impressed by her accomplishments as a hospital administrator, Davis commissioned Tompkins as a captain in the Confederate cavalry. Thus, Robertson Hospital, now run by an army officer, could remain operational. Tompkins accepted the commission; however, she refused to draw a salary for her position. Tompkins was the first, and only, woman to receive an officer’s commission in the Confederate’s armed forces. Her commission was dated September 8, 1861.”

Yet, other sources state that the hospital wasn’t ordered to close until Inspector of Hospitals William A. Carrington recommended it in his official report on Robertson Hospital, dated October 24th, 1862:

“Surgeon E. S. Gaillard Medl Director

I have the honour to report that I have this day inspected the private Hosl called the Robertson Hosl situated on corner of Main & 3rd Sts (Richmond). It has been occupied as a hosl since July 30th 1861. Having been leased free of rent by its distinguished owner Judge Robertson who had made it his residence for many years. A large yard surrounds it in which are the necessary out houses – The hosl building is an irregularly shaped wooden structure – the main building 3 stories high – In addition to an offices, Dining room kitchen & storeroom there are rooms affording a capacity for about 40 patients – 10-13 only now are in the Hospl. Surgeon A. Y. P. Garnett also in charge Genl Hosl no 3 is the only Medl officer of the Hosl & visits it daily or more frequently if necessary – The other attendants are one cook & 2 nurses. An Asist Surgeon formerly resided in the Hospital. Some of them I was informed rendered services gratuitously. I found order & neatness in every part of the Hosl which is supervised in rotation by the ladies who have it under charge – one or two being on duty every day. They exhibited a neat & accurate register showing that 539 patients had been admitted to date. According to the table prepared by the Surg Genl. To Sept 17th 1862 of 550 admitted – 44 had been furloughed, 57 Discharged & 46 Died. This is not a military Hosl in that there is no guards but little restraint exercised over the men; the house is not filled up with similar furniture to the Genl Hosls; having still much of the furniture of the owner’s in use – the food is of a better material than in the large Hosls being prepared and under the supervision of experienced ladies who consider the patients their guests. There is an absence of all that would remind the patient that he beds in ‘an institution’ & many things to make him feel that he is an individual cared for at home – This is an institution similar in origin & intent to other hosls previously inspected & reported – they originated to give form & consolidation to the private exhibitions of patriotism from the noncombatants of our city – when thousands wounded were brought in in one day they filled their post of usefulness and honour; but now the regularly organized institutions are more than sufficient for the demand upon them – they all have a surgical staff & attendants sufficient for their capacity & the government alone is able to provide for all the ordinary & extraordinary demand upon it – In previous reports on other private Hospls I stated other reasons why it would be better for the patients & for the service that this change be made, & in addition I will remark the great additional clerical labor in Reports acquisitions invoices – orders – rations – of property & provision. Monthly abstracts – muster rolls & payrolls &c &c &c for these Hospitals at the Surgeon Generals offic – the Medical Directors Medical Purveyor’s – Commissary – Q. M.s – paymasters – &c &c – In view of these things I recommend

(1) that the patients now in these Hosls be removed to Genl Hosl No. 3 which in order neatness & discipline will compare favorably with this or any other Hosl;

(2) that the support in Rations & Medl supplies be withdrawn;

(3) that the managers who deserve honour & commendation as among the heroines of the war be requested to such among our many wards (hitherto secluded from their presence) fields where their ministrations may be productive of greater usefulness.

Very Respectfully
Your Obt Servant,
Wm. A. Carrington
Surgeon & Inspector of Hospls”

According to the book “Richmond’s War Time Hospitals” this indicates that Tompkins must have received her commission much later than previously thought:

“It is often repeated that Miss Tompkins used the hospital’s low mortality rate as the basis of her argument for obtaining her commission and keeping the hospital open. However, her commission is dated September 9, 1861, less than two months after the opening of the hospital and well before any threatened closing of the hospitals. It has been suggested that Sally was not appointed until 1862 and that the date of the commission was backdated to the point of which her services were recognized to have commenced. However, the commission is signed by Leroy P. Walker, secretary of war. Walker resigned that post on September 19, 1861. What actually prompted President Davis to give Miss Tompkins her commission is unknown. Perhaps Sally was simply foresighted enough to realize that for her hospital to achieve permanence, she would have to transfer organizational and financial responsibility of it to the government and that she would have to work within the military framework.”

Regardless of when she acquired the position, her new role quickly earned her the new nickname “Captain Sally” among her patients and staff at the hospital. The hospital remained open until the end of the war, officially closing its doors on June 13, 1865. In August of 1875, Robertson hospital was torn down and a new building took its place.

Sally Tompkins After the Civil War:
Although she had numerous marriage proposals, Tompkins never married and instead continued with her charity work after the war, helping widows and orphans of Confederate soldiers. After spending most of her fortune helping others, Tompkins entered Richmond’s Home for Confederate Women in 1905 where she remained for 11 years until her death on July 25, 1916. She was buried with full military honors at the Christ Episcopal Church in Matthews County, Virginia.

From: civilwarsaga.com

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Child Soldiers in the Civil War

By Rebecca Beatrice Brooks, 12-16-11

Although most Civil War soldiers were between 18 and 39 years old, many young children also served. It is estimated that at least 100,000 Union soldiers were boys under 15 years old and about 20 percent of all Civil War soldiers were under 18. Since soldiers had to be at least 18 years old to enlist in the military, many of these boys lied about their age in order to join. Other times, especially as the casualties climbed and more soldiers were needed, recruiters looked the other way when underage boys signed up. Coincidentally, it was this abundance of young, boyish-looking men in the ranks that made it easier for young women to disguise themselves as men and also sign up as soldiers.

These boy soldiers usually served as drummer boys, musicians, messengers, nurses and scouts for the troops. Yet, during the heat of battle, many of these boys put these duties aside and joined the troops in combat. One such soldier was Johnny Clem, an 11 year-old drummer boy for the Union army. Johnny became a celebrity during the battle of Chickamauga when he picked up a gun and shot a Confederate officer after he demanded Johnny to surrender. The army later promoted Johnny to sergeant and awarded him a silver medal. Johnny eventually earned the nickname “Drummer Boy of Chickamauga” or “Johnny Shiloh.” He was also commissioned by President Ulysses S. Grant as a second-lieutenant in 1871. Johnny was the last Civil War soldier still actively serving in the army when he retired, as Brigadier-General, in 1915. Another such soldier was John Cook, a 15-year-old Union bugle player, who put down his instrument and volunteered to operate a cannon during the famous battle of Antietam. Cook later received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the battle.

The youngest Union soldier and the youngest soldier to fight in the Civil War was a boy named Edward Black. Edward was born on May 30 in 1853, making him just 8 years old when he joined the Union army on July 24, 1861 as a drummer boy for the 21st Indiana volunteers. He is also considered one of the youngest soldiers ever to serve in the history of the U.S. Army. Black was captured at the Battle of Baton Rouge in August of 1862 but was freed when the Union army won the battle. After the army discharged him in September of 1862, Edward reenlisted with 1st Indiana Volunteer Heavy Artillery in February 1863. He continued fighting until the end of the war and was honorable discharged in February of 1866.

According to the book “The Fighting Men of the Civil War,” the youngest Confederate soldier was probably a boy named Charles C. Hay who joined the Alabama regiment when he was eleven years old.

The youngest soldier injured during the war was a boy named William Black, who was just 12 years old when his left hand and arm were shattered by an exploding shell.

The youngest recruits often served as musicians and drummers, yet this did not prevent them from being wounded or injured like Orion Howe, a 14 year-old drummer who was severely wounded when he volunteered to retrieve some much-needed ammunition for Colonel Malmborg from General Sherman during the battle of Vicksburg. His regiment’s historian wrote an account of Howe’s deed, which was published in the book “Sherman: Fighting Prophet”:

“We could see him nearly all the way…he ran through what seemed a hailstorm of canister and musket-balls, each throwing up its little puff of dust when it struck the dry hillside. Suddenly he dropped and hearts sank, but he had only tripped. Often he stumbled, sometimes he fell prostrate, but was quickly up again and he finally disappeared from us, limping over the summit and the 55th saw him no more for several months.”

Howe later received the Medal of Honor for his actions and Abraham Lincoln appointed him to the United States Naval Academy in July of 1865.

Many of these children joined the army because they were either runaways, orphans or they wanted to fight alongside their brothers and fathers. Although they held romantic and heroic notions of war, it wasn’t long until they experienced the full horrors of war. One boy from Wisconsin, Elisha Stockwell, described his experience during the battle of Shiloh in 1862:

“I want to say, as we lay there and the shells were flying over us, my thoughts went back to my home, and I thought what a foolish boy I was to run away and get into such a mess as I was in. I would have been glad to have seen my father coming after me.”

Another boy, 16-year-old John A. Cockerhill, also described his experience at Shiloh:

“I passed… the corpse of a beautiful boy in gray who lay with his blond curls scattered about his face and his hand folded peacefully across his breast. He was clad in a bright and neat uniform, well garnished with gold, which seemed to tell the story of a loving mother and sisters who had sent their household pet to the field of war. His neat little hat lying beside him bore the number of a Georgia regiment… He was about my age… At the sight of the poor boy’s corpse, I burst into a regular boo hoo and started on.”

Although young children, these boys served their country with as much bravery and dedication as any of the full grown men they fought alongside. About 48 young boys under age 18 won the Congressional Medal of Honor for their bravery during battle and many continued to serve in the army long after the war ended.

Image: Johnny Clem

From: civilwarsaga.com

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Did Civil War Soldiers Have PTSD?

By Tony Horwitz, January 2015

One hundred and fifty years later, historians are discovering some of the earliest known cases of post-traumatic stress disorder.

In the summer of 1862, John Hildt lost a limb. Then he lost his mind.

The 25-year-old corporal from Michigan saw combat for the first time at the Seven Days Battle in Virginia, where he was shot in the right arm. Doctors amputated his shattered limb close to the shoulder, causing a severe hemorrhage. Hildt survived his physical wound but was transferred to the Government Hospital for the Insane in Washington D.C., suffering from “acute mania.”

Hildt, a laborer who’d risen quickly in the ranks, had no prior history of mental illness, and his siblings wrote to the asylum expressing surprise that “his mind could not be restored to its original state.” But months and then years passed, without improvement. Hildt remained withdrawn, apathetic, and at times so “excited and disturbed” that he hit other patients at the asylum. He finally died there in 1911—casualty of a war he’d volunteered to fight a half-century before.

The Civil War killed and injured over a million Americans, roughly a third of all those who served. This grim tally, however, doesn’t include the conflict’s psychic wounds. Military and medical officials in the 1860s had little grasp of how war can scar minds as well as bodies. Mental ills were also a source of shame, especially for soldiers bred on Victorian notions of manliness and courage. For the most part, the stories of veterans like Hildt have languished in archives and asylum files for over a century, neglected by both historians and descendants.

This veil is now lifting, in dramatic fashion, amid growing awareness of conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder. A year ago, the National Museum of Civil War Medicine mounted its first exhibit on mental health, including displays on PTSD and suicide in the 1860s. Historians and clinicians are sifting through diaries, letters, hospital and pension files and putting Billy Yank and Johnny Reb on the couch as never before. Genealogists have joined in, rediscovering forgotten ancestors and visiting their graves in asylum cemeteries.

“We’ve tended to see soldiers in the 1860s as stoic and heroic—monuments to duty, honor and sacrifice,” says Lesley Gordon, editor of Civil War History, a leading academic journal that recently devoted a special issue to wartime trauma. “It’s taken a long time to recognize all the soldiers who came home broken by war, just as men and women do today.”

Counting these casualties and diagnosing their afflictions, however, present considerable challenges. The Civil War occurred in an era when modern psychiatric terms and understanding didn’t yet exist. Men who exhibited what today would be termed war-related anxieties were thought to have character flaws or underlying physical problems. For instance, constricted breath and palpitations—a condition called “soldier’s heart” or “irritable heart”—was blamed on exertion or knapsack straps drawn too tightly across soldiers’ chests. In asylum records, one frequently listed “cause” of mental breakdown is “masturbation.”

Also, while all wars are scarring, the circumstances of each can wound psyches in different ways. The relentless trench warfare and artillery bombardments of World War I gave rise to “shell shock” as well as “gas hysteria,” a panic prompted by fear of poison gas attacks. Long campaigns in later conflicts brought recognition that all soldiers have a breaking point, causing “combat fatigue” and “old sergeant’s syndrome.” In Vietnam, the line between civilians and combatants blurred, drug abuse was rampant and veterans returned home to an often-hostile public. In Iraq and Afghanistan, improvised explosive devices put soldiers and support personnel at constant risk of death, dismemberment and traumatic brain injury away from the front.

Civil War combat, by comparison, was concentrated and personal, featuring large-scale battles in which bullets rather than bombs or missiles caused over 90 percent of the carnage. Most troops fought on foot, marching in tight formation and firing at relatively close range, as they had in Napoleonic times. But by the 1860s, they wielded newly accurate and deadly rifles, as well as improved cannons. As a result, units were often cut down en masse, showering survivors with the blood, brains and body parts of their comrades.

Many soldiers regarded the aftermath of battle as even more horrific, describing landscapes so body-strewn that one could cross them without touching the ground. When over 5,000 Confederates fell in a failed assault at Malvern Hill in Virginia, a Union colonel wrote: “A third of them were dead or dying, but enough were alive to give the field a singularly crawling effect.”

Wounded men who survived combat were subject to pre-modern medicine, including tens of thousands of amputations with unsterilized instruments. Contrary to stereotype, soldiers didn’t often bite on bullets as doctors sawed off arms and legs. Opiates were widely available and generously dispensed for pain and other ills, causing another problem: drug addiction.

Nor were bullets and shells the only or greatest threat to Civil War soldiers. Disease killed twice as many men as combat. During long stretches in crowded and unsanitary camps, men were haunted by the prospect of agonizing and inglorious death away from the battlefield; diarrhea was among the most common killers.

Though geographically less distant from home than soldiers in foreign wars, most Civil War servicemen were farm boys, in their teens or early 20s, who had rarely if ever traveled far from family and familiar surrounds. Enlistments typically lasted three years and in contrast to today, soldiers couldn’t phone or Skype with loved ones.

These conditions contributed to what Civil War doctors called “nostalgia,” a centuries-old term for despair and homesickness so severe that soldiers became listless and emaciated and sometimes died. Military and medical officials recognized nostalgia as a serious “camp disease,” but generally blamed it on “feeble will,” “moral turpitude” and inactivity in camp. Few sufferers were discharged or granted furloughs, and the recommended treatment was drilling and shaming of “nostalgic” soldiers—or, better yet, “the excitement of an active campaign,” meaning combat.

At war’s end, the emotional toll on returning soldiers was often compounded by physical wounds and lingering ailments such as rheumatism, malaria and chronic diarrhea. While it’s impossible to put a number on this suffering, historian Lesley Gordon followed the men of a single unit, the 16th Connecticut regiment, from home to war and back again and found “the war had a very long and devastating reach.”

The men of the 16th had only just been mustered in 1862, and barely trained, when they were ordered into battle at Antietam, the bloodiest day of combat in U.S. history. The raw recruits rushed straight into a Confederate crossfire and then broke and ran, suffering 25 percent casualties within minutes. “We were murdered,” one soldier wrote.

In a later battle, almost all the men of the 16th were captured and sent to the notorious Confederate prison at Andersonville, where a third of them died from disease, exposure and starvation. Upon returning home, many of the survivors became invalids, emotionally numb, or abusive of family. Alfred Avery, traumatized at Antietam, was described as “more or less irrational as long as he lived.” William Hancock, who had gone off to war “a strong young man,” his sister wrote, returned so “broken in body and mind” that he didn’t know his own name. Wallace Woodford flailed in his sleep, dreaming that he was still searching for food at Andersonville. He perished at age 22, and was buried beneath a headstone that reads: “8 months a sufferer in Rebel prison; He came home to die.”

Others carried on for years before killing themselves or being committed to insane asylums. Gordon was also struck by how often the veterans of the 16th returned in their diaries and letters to the twin horrors of Antietam and Andersonville. “They’re haunted by what happened until the end of their lives,” she says.

Gordon’s new book on the 16th, A Broken Regiment, is but one of many recent studies that underscore the war’s toll on soldiers. In another, Living Hell: The Dark Side of the Civil War, historian Michael Adams states on the first page that his book describes “the vicious nature of combat, the terrible infliction of physical and mental wounds, the misery of soldiers living amid corpses, filth, and flies.”

Not all scholars applaud this trend, which includes new scholarship on subjects such as rape, torture and guerrilla atrocities. “All these dark elements describe the margins not the mainstream of Civil War experience,” says Gary Gallagher, a historian at the University of Virginia who has authored and edited over 30 books on the war. While he welcomes the fresh research, he worries that readers may come away with a distorted perception of the overall conflict. The vast majority of soldiers, he adds, weren’t traumatized and went on to have productive postwar lives.

Image: The wounded soldiers were photographed at a hospital in Fredericksburg, Virginia, between 1861 and 1865. (Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs division)

From: smithsonianmag.com

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Cornelia Hancock and Euphemia Goldsborough at Gettysburg

From: acws.co.uk

The scale of the conflict at Gettysburg on the three July days in 1863 was huge; the day after Pickett's final onslaught upon the Federal centre, an area over two square miles was littered with dead and wounded soldiers of both sides. Both the armies were tired and somewhat shocked at the magnitude of the fight and all of the medical facilities were already overstretched with work.
As word spread of the battle, the need for extra help in caring for the wounded found its way into the Northern Press. Lee had left the area and had had to leave 5,500 wounded behind with surgeons who had very few supplies. The Federal forces had nearly 15,000 wounded of its own to care for and almost 2,000 wounded prisoners. At the start there was almost an adequate number of doctors and ambulances to deal with the situation, but when Gen. Meade, pressed by Washington, left the area to pursue the Rebels, he took all but 106 surgeons and left them only 30 ambulances.

Cornelia Hancock, a daughter in a well established New Jersey Quaker family, and Euphemia Goldborough, a Baltimore belle whose family's politic leanings were in sympathy with the Southern cause heard of the situation and made their way to Gettysburg.

Euphemia, a small 27 year old, had experience. She had travelled to Frederick after the battle at Antietam and helped in the hospital treating the Confederate wounded. Since then she had been helping prisoners kept at Point Lookout.

Cornelia journeyed to Baltimore and there was interviewed by the redoubtable Dorothea Dix, the Superintendent of women nurses. "She looked us all over and pronounced all suitable save me," she recalled. "I was then 23 and she objected to my youth and rosy cheeks." However, Cornelia travelled on to Gettysburg where she found that, "the need was so great that there was no further cavil over my age".

Cornelia was not alone in not passing Miss Dix's inspection. Every type of woman was to be found working in the hospitals and in the administration of supply; one, Helen Gilson from Massachusetts, was an attractive girl who wore a short-skirted costume and charmed her patients with her singing, another, Katherine Woolsey was the daughter of a British Admiral. The Army surgeons soon realised that any help was beneficial and gradually accepted that the work they were doing was admirable.

On arrival in the town, Euphemia went to the Pennsylvania College which was full of the Confederate wounded. As the supply of food, blankets and medical supplies improved, mainly due to the work of the Sanitary Commission rather than the Army, she found that the treatment of the Southern soldiers was on equal footing to that of the Union wounded. In fact as soldiers there became able to work they were given positions in trust much to the disapproval of the Provost Marshall who pestered the Medical Director to remove them to prison camps.

Cornelia went to work in the Union second corps field hospital where very soon she became a favourite with the soldiers as she wrote home to her influential parents of the plight. She had no overall picture of the medical problems at Gettysburg but told of what she saw. "There was a long table in the woods that was the operating table, and for seven days it literally ran blood. A wagon stood nearby rapidly filling with amputated arms and legs. So appalling was the number of the wounded as yet unsuccoured, so helpless seemed the few who were battling against tremendous odds to save life, and so overwhelming was the demand for any kind of aid that could be given quickly that one's senses were benumbed by the awful responsibility that fell to the living".

As the situation in the town and on the battlefield became more organised both of the ladies found themselves working in the huge Camp Letterman, a hospital of 12 man tents, six rows made up of some 400 tents in all. Conditions here were very much better, the camp resembled a small city with laundries, kitchens and wells of fresh water. Each tent had a stove and the patients were on beds with mattresses. There was no difference between the facilities given to either Union or Confederate soldiers, many tents contained both.

However, many of the Southern men needed new clothing; Federal Provost Marshals were concerned about the Rebels getting clothing that might have aided an escape but had to allow the tattered uniforms to be replaced with whatever the Sanitary Commission sent, they did however ban them from having shoes or boots. That fact did not deter Euphemia. She would smuggle them in under the hoops of her skirt and also take letters to be sent via friends in Baltimore to families and friends.

Cornelia felt sad when her second corps hospital was closed and the wounded taken to Camp Letterman, she wrote home saying, "It is like parting with one's own family, I go to see the boys and some cry that I cannot stay with them". However, she was presented with silver medallion that they had made and inscribed "Testimonial of regard for ministrations of mercy to the wounded soldiers at Gettysburg, Pa - July 1863". It had cost the men $20 but to Cornelia it must have been priceless.

With the opening of the Camp Letterman Hospital the need for help subsided and many of the ladies who had worked non-stop to help the patients returned home. Both Cornelia and Euphemia stayed on though and it is quite likely that they knew each other although neither mentioned the other in her diary entries. As the wounded were now being moved away by railroad in ever increasing numbers, pressure was put on the medical staff to get the Confederates into prison camps, Euphemia decided that she could do more good in helping at Point Lookout. She left Gettysburg after the death of one of her favourite patients; Sam Watson of the 5th Texas had been nursed by her from the start and his passing particularly affected her. Euphemia's sister was to remark that "She was never the same joyous girl again". She took home many letters of appreciation from soldiers and a wooden ring delicately carved by a soldier with the name "Effie" on its face.

Cornelia departed soon after, she felt that she was no longer required, warning her parents that although she was heading home she would not hesitate to go wherever she felt that she was needed. She was with the Army at the Wilderness all the way to the siege of Petersburg. After the surrender of Lee's forces at Appomattox she finally went home to settle in New Jersey.

Euphemia's southern sympathies were to get her into trouble with the Federal authorities, she was under investigation for aiding patients to escape. A letter from her to a Confederate was intercepted and on November 23 a Provost Marshall's detail arrived and searched her house. She was arrested and charged with treason. Found guilty she was sent by truce steamer to Virginia for the duration of the war. In Richmond where she had by then become quite a celebrity, she lived with the family of Col. W T Patton, an officer of the 7th Virginia whom she had nursed at Gettysburg. President Jefferson gave her a post at the Treasury Dept. in which she served in addition to carrying on her work in the area's many hospitals. At the end of the war she returned to Baltimore.

The two women were by no means unique in their service, many others gave up the comforts of home to serve the wounded. Their stories show that although they had no particular skills to offer, they were both so very compassionate that they gave their all to relieve some of the suffering faced by the men who fought.

Sources: Soldiers in Blue, G W Adams; Debris of Battle, Gerard A Paterson; Letters of Cornelia Hancock.
Hugh R Martyr, 20th Maine
The above article appeared in the ACWS Newsletter, February 2001

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“Soldiers Heart” How the Civil War Impacted Soldiers During & After

By Chris, July 9, 2013

Part I
During and after the Civil War surgeons began looking closely at a medical condition that affected some soldiers; what we today know as PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). It was sometimes first referred to as “melancholy” or “nostalgia” during the war. Then when surgeon Jacob Mendes Da Costa observed symptoms that he classified as a heart issue, which came be to known as “Da Costa’s syndrome,” an idiom developed known as “soldier’s heart” as the description.

In 1871 Da Costa did a study of 300 Civil War veterans that showed there were physical symptoms that he and others associated with combat fatigue. These symptoms persisted in soldiers even after the war. This leads me to the point that soldiers who suffered from PTSD during and after the war really has not received the attention it deserves.

In June 1864, Captain H.L. Patten, of the 20th Massachusetts described mass demoralization and perhaps cases of battle fatigue.

"[The men] have been so horribly worked and badgered that
they are utterly unnerved and demoralised. They are easily
scared as a timid child at night. Half our brigade were
taken prisoners the other day, in the middle of the day, by
a line no stronger than themselves, without firing a shot.
You had a campaign of one day, we of fifty-three days; EVERY
DAY under fire, every night either digging or marching. We,
our brigade, have made fourteen charges upon the enemy’s
breastworks, although at last no amount of urging, no heroic
example, no threats, or anything else, could get the line to
STIR ONE PEG. For my own part, I am utterly tired and dis-
heartened and if I stay at all, it will be like a whipt dog
–because I think I must."

Another leading proponent of mental health during and after the war was surgeon general William Alexander Hammond who wrote "A Treatise on insanity in its medical relations" after the war and noted the impact of battle on “young” and impressionable soldiers, he believed suffered the most. The idea that nostalgia played a significant role was not uncommon as some even believed that after combat soldiers hardened and did not experience further symptoms. Even during the war, some surgeons in various ways considered the condition to be a defect in the rural soldiers or young soldiers who could not adapt to the conditions of soldiering.

However, insanity was a diagnosis during the war that resulted in many soldiers being discharged and even ending up in insane asylums. By World War I battle fatigued (PTSD) was being investigated by Thomas William Salmon who also studied Civil War soldiers and their presence in Insane Asylums.

During the war Richard A. Gabriel of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees and one of the foremost chroniclers of PTSD noted that during 1863 “the number of insane soldiers simply wandering around was so great, there was a public outcry.” As a result the first military hospital for the insane was established that same year, and records for insane soldier’s had already been gathered as early as 1862.

Part II
As noted in Part I, during the Civil War conditions such as “melancholy” and “nostalgia” first appeared as a medical condition in the military surgeon’s reports. According to at least one study, “three cases of nostalgia per 1,000 troops per year were reported among Union soldiers” and most of the soldiers were less than 20 years of age. This led to Surgeon General William A. Hammond in 1862 recommending that the minimum age of new recruits be fixed at 20 years. As noted, surgeons felt that either the age of the soldier or the location of enlistment (rural soldiers from small communities apparently were prominent in the study) were triggers to possible neurosis.

Hammond wrote: “The best means of preventing nostalgia is to provide occupation both for the mind and the body … soldiers placed in hospitals near their homes are always more liable to nostalgia than those who are inmates of hospitals situated in the midst of or in the vicinity of the army to which they belong.”

From 1861 to 1865 the Union Army officially recognized 2,600 cases of “insanity” and 5,200 cases of “nostalgia” requiring hospitalization at Government Hospitals. During the Civil War approximately 200,000 Union soldiers deserted and some could also have qualified for some type of “nostalgia” diagnosis. Additionally, there were 160,000 cases of “constipation”, however, later the diagnosis was changed to “precombat syndrome.” Yet another study found that during the war 5213 cases of “nostalgia” during the first year alone, with the rate increasing in following years. Finally, this study also showed that 6 out of every 1000 men were discharged for “insanity.”

Fifty years later “nostalgia” would be called “combat exhaustion” and then “battle fatigue.” After the war the rate of soldier’s being diagnosed with some form of psychological disorder will be part of our next focus on Part III. However, what should be noted, is that during and after the war surgeons found no significant increase in the rate of insanity among the civilian population.

From: soldierstudies.org

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A Good Caning

From: acw.co.uk

The place, the Senate Chamber, Washington D.C., Date May 22nd 1856.

One day after Senator Sumner had finished his speech, he addressed himself to the absent Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina, basically saying that Butler was a spokesman for slavery, which he called a crime against nature. And other comments such as, "He has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight, I mean the Harlot - Slavery".

There was quite a bit more of this, ranging from Senator Butler to Ancient Egyptians.

But back to May 22nd. The Chamber where the Senate met was nearly empty, a few Senators lounged near the doors or worked at desks.

Sumner scribbled away at his desk, then realised that someone was standing beside him.

"I have read your speech twice over, carefully. It is a libel on South Carolina, and Senator Butler, who is a relative of mine."

Then the man raised a walking stick high and brought it down hard on Senator Sumner's head. The man with the cane was South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks, nephew to Senator Butler, a youthful six-footer of robust frame - sometime cavalryman in the Mexican War.

He struck again and again, a man who saw it said, "like a dragoon using his sabre".

Caught between the chair and the immovable desk, Sumner tried to get up. He was heard to gasp "Oh Lord!" Then with a great convulsive heave, he wrenched the desk loose from its fastenings and reeled to his feet. Brooks struck again, the cane broke, so he clubbed him with the splintered butt.

Sumner was now on the floor with blood on both head and clothing, while men ran down the aisle to him. Brooks stopped beating him and strolled away saying "I did not intend to kill him but I did intend to whip him!

Sumner was helped to his feet and led to a sofa in the lobby. He lay half unconscious as a doctor was called and his wounds dressed. The doctor said afterwards that the wound did not seem very severe.

A carriage took him back to his rooms and his own doctor was sent for, who ordered Sumner to bed. He pronounced Sumner's condition most serious. There was much argument then and later. For three years he did not return to the Senate Chamber. He travelled to England and France for medical treatments. His spine had been affected the foreign specialists told him, and for a long time he walked and talked like a man who had had a partial stroke.

Many considered Sumner a tragic martyr and there is no doubt that his caning on the floor of the US Senate made some people reason in the North that the slave power (it would be said), could not be reasoned with.

Young Brooks would be a hero in the South. Innumerable gifts of canes, one which bore the plate 'Hit him again'.

Sadly he did not have long to live. Within a year he would die of a bronchial infection. In the days left to him, he grew heartily sick of the kind of fame he had won, for he did not like to be considered a bully. He was a friendly, warmhearted man of good family. He had grown up in a society in which a man might be held to render physical account for any words he had used (e.g. Duels). He would have challenged Sumner to a duel, he said, if he had had any notion that the man would accept, but since he knew he would not, he felt obliged to use either cane or a horsewhip.

 Violence in Kansas, violence in the Senate Chamber. Men were making their choices. The time for talking was fast running out. The storm that was the Civil War was coming.

Pvt. A B Spencer, 1st Maryland Inf.
Extracts from This Hallowed Ground by Bruce Catton.
The above article appeared in the ACWS Newsletter, June 2000

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President Lincoln's Jewish Doctor

By Jennifer Schuessler, March 19, 2015

ON Sept. 20, 1862, Abraham Lincoln had a lot on his mind. The Civil War was raging, and just days later he would issue the preliminary draft of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Still, the weary president found time to sit down to write a testimonial to his podiatrist.

“Dr. Zacharie has, with great dexterity, taken some troublesome corns from my toes,” Lincoln wrote. “He is now treating me, and I believe with success, for what plain people call back-ache. We shall see how it will end.”

The story may seem like the beginning of an ill-advised borscht belt meets Corn Belt joke. But in fact it’s one of the more unexpected vignettes presented in a serious new exhibition, “Lincoln and the Jews,” which opens on Friday at the New-York Historical Society.

The show includes about 100 letters, photographs and other artifacts, many never previously exhibited, drawn largely from the Shapell Manuscript Collection, assembled by the collector and philanthropist Benjamin Shapell.

Arranged chronologically, the exhibition presents the broader story of Lincoln’s political career and the Civil War through what organizers say is a fresh prism: Lincoln’s complex and sometimes surprising interactions with a religious minority that was beginning to claim an equal place in American life.

“Lincoln played an important role in turning Jews from outsiders in America to insiders,” said Jonathan D. Sarna, a historian at Brandeis University and the author, with Mr. Shapell, of the new, separately published book “Lincoln and the Jews,” which inspired the show. “It’s a subject that has really been overlooked.”

Lincoln’s lifetime coincided with a dramatic increase in America’s Jewish population, which grew from about 3,000 in 1809, the year of his birth, to roughly 150,000 in 1860. Growing up in the Midwest, he probably encountered few or no Jews in person until he became a young man. But at a time when anti-Semitism and nativism ran high, the show notes, there is no evidence of Lincoln harboring any animus toward Jews.

“When it came to personal interactions with Jews or issues that had an impact on Jews, Lincoln did the right thing on every occasion,” Harold Holzer, a prominent Lincoln scholar and the exhibition’s chief historian, said in an interview.

He added, “The most important thing you could be to Lincoln wasn’t a Christian or a Jew, but a Republican.”

The exhibition opens with a wall-size graphic laying out “Lincoln’s Jewish Connections” in concentric circles of decreasing intimacy, from “friends” (five) to “appointments and pardons” (48), seemingly leaving no stone unturned. The first known photograph of Lincoln with a beard, a label notes, was taken by a Jewish photographer from Illinois, Samuel Alschuler. (That photo, along with a beardless one also taken by Alschuler, is displayed in a vitrine mimicking a 19th-century box camera.) Jews were also responsible for helping organize his first inaugural ball, telegraphing the official text of the Emancipation Proclamation and designing the Lincoln penny.

Lincoln also counted Jews among his closest political allies. Two sections of the exhibition are devoted to Abraham Jonas, an Illinois businessman and politician he met around 1843. Jonas — “one of my most valued friends,” Lincoln once wrote — was among those who strongly encouraged Lincoln to run for president, suggesting a strategy of appealing to outsiders, including “liberal and freethinking Germans” and “Israelites.” It was also Jonas who, in a December 1860 letter included in the show, warned Lincoln of a plot to assassinate him at his inauguration.

As president, Lincoln took some bold actions on behalf of Jews. In 1862, he approved legislation creating the first Jewish military chaplains, to serve the nearly 7,000 Jews in the Union Army. He also appointed an Orthodox Jew as a quartermaster, noting that “we have not yet appointed a Hebrew.” (Eventually, some 50 Jews would fill that capacity.)

When Gen. Ulysses S. Grant issued his infamous General Orders No. 11 in 1862, barring Jews “as a class” from all territories under his control because he thought they were smuggling cotton, Lincoln quickly rescinded it.

“I do not like to hear a class or nationality condemned on account of a few sinners,” Lincoln reportedly said.

Lincoln’s commitment to religious pluralism even held in grisly moments. When five deserters were executed at Beverly Ford, Va., in August 1863, each was accompanied by a clergyman of his own faith, with a Jewish prisoner marching out first in accordance with Judaism’s status as “the most ancient of religious creeds,” as one news account put it.

And then there was Lincoln’s relationship with the eccentric, British-born Issachar Zacharie. The chiropodist, as a foot doctor was known at the time, scored a cameo in Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” — as well as an entry in the online resource PodiaPaedia. But his story, Mr. Sarna said, is told in full in the book for the first time.

Zacharie first treated Lincoln in 1862, on the recommendation of the editor William Cullen Bryant and others. Their relationship was celebrated in an “Ode to Dr. Zacharie” published that year in Vanity Fair, then a humorous weekly. (The first line: “King of Chiropodists, salaam!”) In early 1863, Lincoln sang the doctor’s praises to a (gentile) White House visitor who had presented a far-fetched scheme to end the Civil War, restore the Jews to Palestine and establish general world peace.

“I myself have a regard for the Jews,” Lincoln reportedly said, brushing off his visitor. “My chiropodist is a Jew, and he has so many times ‘put me on my feet’ that I would have no objection to giving his countrymen ‘a leg up.’ ”

Zacharie’s grandiose dream of establishing a chiropody corps within the Union Army never came to pass. But Lincoln did send him to New Orleans in 1862 to gauge public opinion among Jews there, in what Zacharie later described as a spy mission. (At one point, the exhibition notes, he enlisted the help of fellow Jews disguised as peddlers.) He made a similar trip to Richmond, Va., in 1863, reporting back to Lincoln on a meeting with Judah P. Benjamin, the Jewish secretary of state for the Confederacy.

Zacharie also vigorously campaigned in New York for Lincoln’s re-election in 1864, reassuring him that “the Israelites” would “vote for you,” and claiming to have secured “trustworthy men to attend to them on Election Day.” (Such comments, a wall label notes, helped to set off scoffing in the Jewish press that any Jewish bloc existed.)

He popped up again in a January 1865 memo titled “About Jews,” in which Lincoln implicitly rebuked his secretary of war, Edwin M. Stanton, for detaining Zacharie during another trip to the South, and also requested fair treatment for Leopold Blumenberg, a Union Army provost marshal charged with torturing suspected deserters, among other abuses.

Lincoln, the exhibition shows, did much for Jews, individually and as a group. But just how affected was Lincoln by his encounters with them?

Deeply, Mr. Sarna argues. The encounters, he writes in the book, helped push Lincoln past a “parochially Christian” understanding of American identity. In what he called his “most controversial claim,” not made by the show, Mr. Sarna writes that the ecumenical phrase “this nation, under God” in the Gettysburg Address may have been meant as a “silent homage” to Jews who fell on the battlefield, one that “reimagined America in language that embraced Jews as equals.”

Mr. Holzer, the winner of this year’s Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize for his book “Lincoln and the Power of the Press,” said he wouldn’t go that far. “Clearly Lincoln was a leader concerned principally with African-Americans and their relationship with white America,” he said. “I think it would be wrong to say he dwelled on the place of non-Christians.”

But still, Mr. Holzer added, there is no denying Jews’ sense of “mystical association” with Lincoln, who was assassinated not just on Good Friday but during Passover, when many rabbis heard the news as they were preparing for Saturday services.

A wall text near the end of the exhibition quotes a eulogy delivered by Rabbi Henry Hochheimer at the Oheb Israel Congregation in Baltimore. “More than all others, the ‘House of Israel’ has cause to mourn this great loss,” the rabbi declared. “Abraham Lincoln had served as American Jewry’s ‘shield and protection.’ ”

“Lincoln and the Jews” continues through June 7 at the New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West; 212-873-3400, nyhistory.org.

A version of this article appears in print on March 20, 2015, on page C25 of the New York edition with the headline: A President’s Bonds With a Jewish Minority.

IMAGE: A carte de visite of Dr. Zacharie, who first treated Lincoln in 1862. In 1864, he vigorously campaigned in New York for Lincoln’s re-election. Credit The Shapell Manuscript Collection

IMAGE: The exhibit, which opens Friday, includes a  testimonial that Lincoln wrote to Dr. Issachar Zacharie, one of several testimonials he wrote for his Jewish podiatrist. Credit The Shapell Manuscript Collection

From: nytimes.com

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Joseph K. Barnes, Surgeon General

history.amedd.army.mil

JOSEPH K. BARNES (July 21,1817 - April 5,1883), Surgeon General, August 22, 1864 - June 30, 1882, was born in Philadelphia, Pa., the son of Judge Joseph Barnes, a native of New England, who served for many years as Judge of the district court of that city. He received in academic education at Round Hill School at Northampton, Mass., and entered upon a collegiate course at Harvard University. Compelled by ill health to leave college before graduation he began the study of medicine with Surgeon (later Surgeon General) Thomas Harris of the navy, and received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1838.

After graduation he served a year as resident physician at Blockley Hospital and for another year as visiting physician for the northwestern district of Philadelphia. He then appeared before an army examining board which was meeting at the time in Philadelphia and pursuant to its recommendation he was commissioned an assistant surgeon on June 15, 1840, and was assigned for his first duty to the West Point Military Academy.

After only a few months of this duty he was ordered, Nov. 19, 1840, to accompany a detachment of recruits to Florida, where hostilities were in progress against the Seminole Indians. For the two following years he served successively at eight posts in that state, much of the time giving professional service to two or more posts at the same time, owing to the shortage of medical officers. Notable in his field service of this period was that involved while accompanying General Harney's expedition through the Everglades. In

1842 he was assigned to Fort Jesup, La., where he remained until 1846, when with the beginning of the Mexican War he joined the 2d Dragoons en route to Corpus Christi to join the army being mobilized for the invasion of Mexico from the north. He served with the cavalry column of General Taylor's army during its advance to Monterey. Later transferred to General Scott's forces before Vera Cruz he served with General Worth's division during the siege and capture of that city. During the advance upon Mexico City he was chief surgeon of the cavalry brigade and participated in the battles of Cerro Gordo, Contreras, Cherubusco, and Molina del Rey, in the storming of Chapultepec and the capture of the capital.

From Mexico City he was ordered to duty at Baton Rouge, La., in 1848.; During the thirteen years that intervened between this time and the Civil War, Barnes saw a service which took him to widely separated parts of the country. In the south he served at Fort Croghan and other posts in Texas, in the plains country at Fort Scott, Fort Leavenworth, and Camp Center (now Fort Riley), on the Pacific coast at San Francisco, Fort Vancouver and the Cascades, while between times he saw tours of duty at Baltimore, Fort McHenry, Philadelphia, and West Point. In the meantime be had been promoted to major and surgeon on August 29, 1856.

The shelling of Fort Sumter found him at Fort Vancouver. He was immediately ordered east and served successively as medical director of the forces under General David Hunter, medical director of the Western Department, and medical director of the Department of Kansas, all of these assignments pertaining to the troops operating in Missouri. On May 2, 1862, he was ordered to report to the Surgeon General in Washington and upon reporting was assigned to duty as attending surgeon for the city. While on this duty he formed the acquaintance of Secretary of War Stanton who quickly gained a highly favorable impression of him. The friendship which ensued lasted throughout their careers and had profound effects, not only upon the future activities of Barnes, but upon the fortunes of the medical service.

On February 9, 1863, Barnes was appointed a medical inspector with the rank of lieutenant colonel, and with station in Washington. On August 10, 1863, he was further advanced to the position of medical inspector general with the grade of colonel. It was but a few weeks after this advancement that the difficulties between Stanton and Surgeon General Hammond culminated in the detachment of the latter from his office. On September 3, 1863, Barnes was by a special order of the War Department "empowered to take charge of the bureau of the Medical Department of the army and to perform the duties of Surgeon General during the absence of that officer." He assumed the office of acting Surgeon General the following day thus beginning one of the longest and most eventful administrations in the history of the office. On August 22, 1864, he was advanced to the position of Surgeon General, with the grade of brigadier general and on March 13, 1865, he received the brevet of major general for faithful and meritorious service during the war.

Secretary Stanton, now having a Surgeon General of his own choice and one personally acceptable to him, became as solicitous for the medical service as he had hitherto been inimical. For the remainder of his term of office he exhibited the greatest interest in the health and hygienic conditions of the army, in the comfort and welfare of the sick and wounded, and in efforts to extend the facilities and opportunities of the medical officers. Such a situation tended to make easy the problems of the new Surgeon General. As principal assistant, Barnes brought to his office Major Charles Henry Crane, who continued in the capacity throughout the eighteen years of his term and succeeded to the office upon the retirement of his chief.

The work of collecting material for the Medical Museum and for the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion was pushed vigorously during the years 1863 and 1864. The question of the military control of general hospitals was a vexing one from the beginning of the war. A War Department order of April 7, 1862, placed them under the supervision of the Surgeon General, but was not sufficiently explicit in its provisions regarding the right of command of the medical officers in charge of these hospitals. It was not until December 27, 1864, that the question was finally settled by General Order No. 306, confirming the medical officer's right to command in his own sphere of action.

The good will of Secretary Stanton was again shown by an order of February 8, 1865, giving to the medical department entire control of hospital transports and hospital boats. The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion was first suggested by Surgeon General Hammond in a circular to medical officers inviting cooperation in the collection of material. In 1865 there was issued by the Surgeon General a report upon the extent and nature of the material available for its preparation. Since 1862 Major Joseph J. Woodward had been in charge of the Army Medical Museum and of the material for the history. In 1866 Major George A. Otis was brought into the office and he and Major Woodward were charged with the preparation of this great work.

Four of the six monumental volumes were completed under General Barnes' administration and the other two were far advanced at the time of his retirement.  His regime was further notable for the interest he took in the development of the Army Medical Library. During his term of office, the library, under the supervision of Major John S. Billings, was expanded from a small collection of text-books to first rank among medical libraries of the country.

An epoch making event was the appearance in 1880 of the first volume of the Index Catalogue, edited by Billings, the continuance of which has brought world wide fame and acclaim to the library and to the medical department. In the reorganization of the army following the Civil War, General Barnes was successful in retaining for the medical department the same proportion of the several grades of officers as existed during the conflict. This was not accomplished without a protracted struggle against various proposals which would have seriously crippled the department.

General Barnes was a handsome man of fine physique and attractive personality. Gifted with tact and diplomacy he possessed to a high degree the quality of inspiring confidence and friendship. These qualities stood him in good stead during the early years of his administration and were fruitful in benefits for the medical department. It fell to his lot to share in the professional care of two murdered presidents. At the time of the assassination of President Lincoln and the attempted assassination of Secretary Seward he attended the death bed of the one and ministered to the successful restoration of the other.  During the long illness of President Garfield he was one of the surgeons who for weeks served in the chamber of the dying president. The protracted service and anxiety incident to the care of the latter took heavy toll on Barnes' health. An Act of Congress passed June 30, 1882 (22 Stat. 118),  providing for compulsory retirement for age, found Barnes nearly a year past the statutory age and he was retired on June 30, 1882. A chronic nephritis of which he was a subject for some time caused his death at his home in Washington on April 5, 1883. His remains lie in Oak Hill Cemetery, Washington, D. C. His wife, who was Mary Fauntleroy, daughter of Judge Fauntleroy, of Winchester, Va., survived him.

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