National Museum of Civil War Medicine

01/09/2024

The surgeon approached the operation with the clean hands of a gentleman. He usually wore an old coat covered with dried blood spots from previous service. His finger-nails were very likely were long and no special attention was given them. The instruments were taken out of a velvet-lined case and were as clean as ordinary table-knives would be. The operation was done without any preliminary cleansing of the skin other than to remove visible dirt. If the knife happened to fall on the floor it was picked up, rinsed in a basin of ordinary water and used as it was.

Source:
Keen, W.W., "Surgical Reminiscences of the Civil War," Philadelphia: College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 1905, page 4, via HathiTrust Digital Library, accessed June 12, 2021, .

Image credit:
Detail from Edwin Forbes, "Field hospital (second corps) on the battlefield of Chancellorsville, May 2 1863," Library of Congress.

01/08/2024

On Tuesday, Jan 9th, our Between The Lines book club will meet to discuss Kate Moore's book, The Woman They Could Not Silence.

For more information about the event and how to sign up for our book club, follow the link below.

https://www.civilwarmed.org/event/between-the-lines-virtual-book-club-meeting-jan-2024/

01/08/2024

For those watching the Golden Globe Awards, you may have seen Lily Gladstone, who won for Best Actress in a Motion Picture (Drama) for her role in Killers of the Flower Moon. Gladstone is a member of the Blackfeet Nation and the first person who identifies as indigenous to win. Indigenous peoples are often overlooked in history, and they played an important role during the Civil War. Check out our latest blog post for more on their story.

Learn about the approximately 20,000 Native Americans who served in the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War.

01/08/2024

In the wake of the Second Battle of Murfreesboro (Stones River) in the first days of January 1863, Chattanooga, Tennessee received thousands of wounded and maimed Confederate soldiers.

From the "Chattanooga Daily Rebel," January 8, 1863:

“Night after night have we seen the kind Surgeons and their equally kind assistants at the depots, busy in their attentions to the wounded arriving by the trains. A little system, on the part of our citizens, in rendering aid will not be oppressive to anyone, nor will the necessity exist longer than a week, if the complete prostration of the corps can be avoided.

"Under normal circumstances the Medical Corps at the hospitals is sufficient to keep the establishment in order. But on the heels of a terrible battle, where so many brave and patients sufferers are borne from the field to our very doors, shall we idle and apathetic? Forbid it heaven! It will never be said that the people of Tennessee were wanting in that hospitality and humanity which has ever characterized the citizens of our State.”

Image credit:
Chattanooga, Tennessee during the Civil War, Library of Congress.

01/07/2024

Tens of thousands of amputations were performed during the Civil War. With medical advances in the mid-19th century, many of those patients survived.

Many disabled Civil War veterans felt embarrassed and ashamed of their disability, and even a prosthetic limb could not fill the deep void an amputated limb could leave.

Discover the stunning history of Civil War prosthetics and the men that wore them.

01/07/2024

“We have now a good regimental hospital, admirably arranged in a deserted gin-house,” wrote Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson in his diary on January 7, 1863. He commanded the newly formed 1st South Carolina Volunteers, later to be rennamed the 33rd United States Colored Troops.

On the same day Higginson mentioned the establishment of the regimental hospital, he also noted the death of a member of the regiment and the subsequent funeral in particularly vivid language:

“Another soldier died of pneumonia… and we had the funerals in the evening. It was very impressive. A dense mist came up, with a moon behind it, and we had only the light of pine-splinters, as the procession wound along beneath the mighty, moss-hung branches of the ancient grove.

"The groups around the grave, the dark faces, the red garments, the scattered lights, the misty boughs, were weird and strange. The men sang one of their own wild chants. Two crickets sang also, one on either side, and did not cease their little monotone, even when the three volleys were fired above the graves.”

Source:
"Army life in a black regiment" by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1870

Image credit:
The 1st South Carolina Volunteer Infantry on dress parade, Library of Congress.

01/06/2024

The National Museum of Civil War Medicine WILL BE CLOSED TODAY (Saturday, January 6) due to inclement weather.

The Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum will remain open.

Thank you and stay safe!

01/06/2024

"Tuesday, January 6th, 1863,

"We at present lead as monotonous a life as it is possible to conceive. 'Surgeon's Call' every morning at 7 o'clock, then breakfast, reports all made out and sent in by 9 o'clock, and for the balance of the day nothing to do but loll about our tents and read newspapers, as they are about the only things we can get to read.

"Books would be very pleasant companions, but in case of a sudden move, we would be obliged to throw them away as we have no means of taking them with us..."

- Spencer Bonsall, Hospital Steward, 81st Pennsylvania Infantry

Written near Falmouth, Virginia following the disastrous Fredericksburg Campaign of December 1862, Bonsall and his Pennsylvania comrades began the drudgery of winter encampment.

They would be rousted from camp and onto the roads later in the month, only to be stopped in their tracks by poor weather and even worse mud.

Union commander Ambrose Burnside's "Mud March" of January 1863 proved that winter campaigning during the Civil War was an exceedingly bad idea.

Image credit:
Detail from A.R. Waud, "Near Falmouth, Jany. 1863," Library of Congress.

01/05/2024

Our clothes were a gore of blood and our hands so continuously in it that for most of that time they were crisped and wrinkled like a washerwoman's after a days labor in her suds.

Source:
Trowbridge, Silas Thompson, "Autobiography of Silas Thompson Trowbridge M.D.," Carbondale: Southern Illinois University, 2004, page 79.

Image credit:
Detail from Alfred Waud, "Citizen Volunteers assisting the wounded in the field of Battle, Sept 17 1862," Library of Congress.

01/04/2024

"It is a Saturday night, I am writing a paper in the common room of the fire station in Gettysburg. Tones drop in the station and our crew for the night was dispatched to the college campus because someone had a bit too much to drink at a party..."

Education Specialist and former EMT Michael Mahr shares his research on the origins of civilian ambulance services.

Ambulance services began during the Civil War and continue today

01/04/2024

01/04/2024

Dr. Seth Rogers was the surgeon of the 1st South Carolina Volunteers, later renamed the 33rd USCT. Assisting him in his duties was a formerly enslaved attendant:

"My young orderly, who should be named Ariel, remarked today that he had all his life been accustomed to take his master’s family out in a boat, till one day he thought he would take his own family off in the same way. He is from Florida."

Source:
Letter dated Sunday, Jan. 4, 1863, "War-time Letters from Seth Rogers, M.D. Surgeon of the First South Carolina Afterwards the Thirty-third U.S.C.T. 1862-1863," via Florida History Online, University of North Florida, accessed July 31, 2020, .

Image credit:
"Fugitive Slaves escaping to the protection of our army at Wilmington - Scene on the Cape Fear River," in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, June 17, 1865, page 205, via The House Divided Project at Dickinson College, accessed July 31, 2020, .

01/03/2024

TIME CHANGE--For our Behind the Lines Book Club members, we will be meeting via Zoom at 5PM on January 9th instead of 7PM. This is to accommodate our author, Kate Moore, who will be calling in from the U.K.

Join the Between the Lines Book Club for an online discussion of The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore. The author herself will be joining us.

01/03/2024

Due to the forecasted snowstorm this Saturday, we are POSTPONING this talk. Check back here soon for a new date. We apologize for any inconvenience.

POSTPONED DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER. Explore the true stories of women who fought as soldiers in the Civil War

01/03/2024

"The Drum corps and the Regimental Band, if there is one, are always on the eve of a battle ordered to report to the Surgeon for duty, but the less he calculates on aid from them the better. With a few exceptions they are generally worthless as stretcher bearers, many of them being young lads physically incapable of such fatiguing duty."

Source:
Vickery, Dr. Richard Swanton, "On the Duties of the Surgeon in Action," transcribed on the Mid-Missouri Civil War Roundtable website, 2004, now defunct, via The Wayback Machine, accessed September 20, 2019, .

01/02/2024

"I remember no acute sensation of pain, not even any distinct shock, only an instantaneous consciousness of having been struck; then my breath came hard and laboured, with a crouplike sound, and with a dull, aching feeling in my right shoulder, my arm fell powerless at my side, and the Enfield dropped from my grasp. I threw my left hand up to my throat and withdrew it covered with warm, bright-red blood. The end had come at last…”

Source:
"The Story of a Regiment: A History of the Campaigns, and Associations in the Field, of the Sixth Regiment Ohio Volunteer Infantry," by Ebenezer Hannaford

Image credit:
The Battle of Stones River, December 31, 1862, Library of Congress.

01/02/2024

"As the wounded of the First Tennessee were brought in, they always called for me, and it was my high privilege to attend to nearly, if not quite all, the wounded of my regiment.

"Some of them were desperately wounded; among these was Bryant House, nicknamed among the boys... 'Shanty.' He had been shot through the body. The surgeon into whose hands he had first fallen told him that it was impossible to extract the ball and that there was no hope for him.

"'Well, send for my chaplain,' he said, doubtless thinking that I would offer up a prayer in his behalf. Instead of that, however, i went in search of the ball with my surgical instruments, and was successful.

"'Shanty' died in September, 1895. He was for years after the war a conductor on the Nashville, Chattanooga, and St. Louis Railway, and took great delight in telling this story."

Rev. Dr. Charles Todd Quintard, Chaplain and Surgeon with the 1st Tennessee Volunteers, CSA.

The incident with "Shanty" House occurred during the Battle of Murfreesboro (Stones River) which occurred on December 31, 1862 - January 2, 1863 in Middle Tennessee.

Quintard's recollections of his time with the Confederate Army are compiled in "Doctor Quintard, Chaplain C.S.A. and Second Bishop of Tennessee," edited by Sam Davis Elliot.

Image credit:
Rev. Quintard, photographed by Matthew Brady, Library of Congress.

01/01/2024

January is National Blood Donor Month! 🩸

Did you know that Civil War surgeons were experimenting (mostly unsuccessfully) with blood transfusions?

Like today, blood loss was a major cause of death for wounded warriors. Learn how doctors fought back.

01/01/2024

"January 1st, 1862.

"Today is the first of the new year. Welcome to the bright, young, and lovely "New Year," may thy short reign bring with it peace, prosperity, and plenty. May the dark clouds that have gathered about us pass away, may the sunshine of peace and prosperity illuminate our darkened land."

Private Van Willard, 3rd Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry

Private Willard recorded this passage in his diary while stationed in the hospital wards of U.S. General Hospital #1 in Frederick, Maryland. Despite his hopes, 1862 proved to be a perilous year for Willard and his comrades in the 3rd Wisconsin. He experienced combat for the first time and was severely wounded during the Battle of Antietam in September 1862. He eventually recovered in another hospital in Frederick.

Image credit:
Interior of a Civil War hospital tent, Harper's Weekly, March 11, 1865.

12/31/2023

A report detailing the medical preparations and response during the early stages of the Battle of Stones River, which began on this day in 1862.

Medical Director Ebenezer Swift, Army of the Cumberland:

"Before leaving Nashville I had approved of full and complete requisitions, at the suggestion of Surgeon Murray, U.S. Army, my predecessor, for the three grand divisions of the army. I had also, in reserve, tents, bedding, &c., for a field hospital for more than 2,500 men, which I ordered up from the rear on the 29th, as soon as I learned the enemy had made a stand near Murfreesborough.

"At the same time I ordered forward 20 ambulances--all that we had on hand at Nashville. Surgeons were detailed to perform operations, when decided on after consultation, for dressing, and such other duties as the reception and disposition of the wounded and circumstances required."

Source:
Swift's report on the Battle of Stones River, January 25, 1863

Image credit:
Medical Director Ebenezer Swift, National Museum of Civil War Medicine collection.

12/31/2023

In December 1861, the 104th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry moved into a new military installation on the northern side of the Union capital. Carver Barracks were named for one of the regiment's officers who led the efforts to construct the complex.

When the regiment moved out to the Virginia Peninsula in March 1862, Carver Barracks became one of Washington's largest military hospitals.

Lieutenant James M. Carver of the 104th Pennsylvania designed a barracks that became famous in Washington during the Civil War.

12/30/2023

"I... feel it my duty, as surgeon of the reg’t to report, officially, to Head Quarters, in time to avert the calamity of having the Small Pox spread through our splendid Army of the Potomac, thereby giving aid and comfort to the enemy.”

Read about one of the most famous examples of quarantine in the Civil War. The 20th Maine was kept out of Chancellorsville due to smallpox.

12/30/2023

Holiday Hours Update!

The National Museum of Civil War Medicine will close at 2 PM on New Year's Eve and be closed on New Year's Day.

The Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum will be closed on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

Happy New Year's and keep an eye out for some of the incredible programs we will be offering in 2024!

12/29/2023

These remarkable sketches were made by Confederate prisoner Jacob Omenhausser at Point Lookout, Maryland, in 1864.

These sketches were made by Confederate prisoner Jacob Omenhausser at Point Lookout, Maryland, in 1864. The New-York Historical Society has digitized...

12/29/2023

The powerful gaze of a Civil War surgeon from the collection of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine.

This is Surgeon Charles V. Mottram of the 6th Michigan Volunteer Infantry. He was appointed as surgeon of the unit in June 1861 and mobilized with the regiment when they marched to war later that year. The native of Kalamazoo County, Michigan served admirably throughout the conflict.

In 1862, he was promoted to be Medical Director of the Department of the Gulf, distinguishing himself during service at the battles of Baton Rouge and Port Hudson.

Mottram continued serving on hospital steamers on the Mississippi River through the end of the war, practicing medicine on the waters until September 1865. After the war, he dealt with disabilities resulting from the diseases he contracted while in the service.

Of Mottram's service in the Civil War, a writer in Michigan wrote: "In the war he had a high reputation with men of learning for his great acquirements, and on the field, by his kindly solicitude for the sick, wounded, and sore distressed; he won the closest and most cordial regard of the soldiers."

Image credit:
Surgeon C.V. Mottram, National Museum of Civil War Medicine collection.

12/28/2023

"When soldiers of the South massed around Richmond at the beginning of the Civil War, the city needed more than drill fields and barracks. Richmond needed hospitals, lots of hospitals."

A 2011 article that summarizes how the Confederate capital became a city of hospitals during the Civil War.

When soldiers of the South massed around Richmond at the beginning of the Civil War, the city needed more than drill fields and barracks. Richmond needed hospitals, lots of hospitals.

12/28/2023

In 1862, Frederick, Maryland was thrust into the international spotlight when Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac both used the city during their operations in Maryland.

As battles raged just west of Frederick, medical personnel turned the town of 8,000 inhabitants into "one vast hospital." More than 8,000 patients were treated in 27 makeshift hospitals throughout the city in the aftermath of the Battle of South Mountain and the far bloodier Battle of Antietam.

Frederick is now home to the National Museum of Civil War Medicine.

Image credit:
Frederick, Maryland in Harper's Weekly.

12/27/2023

"All Quiet on the Potomac"

This 1864 reproduction of a haunting painting by George Douglas Brewerton depicts a sentry standing next to graves on the snow-covered banks of the Potomac River. The name of the painting refers to a telegram by General George McClellan early in the Civil War.

Image credit:
Library of Congress.

12/27/2023

A Civil War surgeon’s introspection and musings on the future amid a boring, dreary winter day in camp:

“December 27th, 1863.

"It is raining and blowing fearfully, but I am snug and dry under my canvas shelter, where, in a little space ten feet square, is combined bedroom, sitting-room, and office; for I am still living in a tent, as I cannot find sufficient wood to build a hut.

"It is dull enough, with nothing to do and nothing new to heart. I spend hours alone in my tent, thinking of the future; questioning and answering myself.

"This seems to me a desert that I am now passing through, which must be crossed before I can dream of home; before an earned contentment would satisfy me to settle down to practice my profession.”

This was what Dr. John Gardner Perry of the 20th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry wrote two days after Christmas 1863. His words were no doubt echoed by many soldiers, surgeons, and officers who spent their winters warding off the cold and thoughts of home.

Source:
“Letters of a Civil War Surgeon,” Library of Congress.

Image credit:
Dr. John Gardner Perry, March 1864, in “Letters of a Civil War Surgeon,” Library of Congress.

12/26/2023

Black chaplains and their work in the US Army

Army chaplains frequently helped the medical staff by ministering to the sick and wounded, assisting with surgeries, and comforting the dying.

Of the approximately 105 regiments of the United States Colored Troops, only 14 had black chaplains. Most of these African American chaplains belonged to abolitionist-sponsored New England regiments or gained commissions by virtue of their service as US Army recruiters.

Official US Army regulations required that all chaplains be elected by their regimental officers, who were white, making the ascension of black chaplains more difficult.

Image credit:
District of Columbia. Company E, 4th U.S. Colored Infantry, at Fort Lincoln, Library of Congress.