Please note: this information is part of my personal notes and is
used for research purposes only. The quotes from various sources are those
books used to determine who was and wasn't a surgeon during the War.
It is by no means a complete list of references or all the resources available
to determine provenance of a given surgical set, surgeon, or doctor. Documenting
provenance and determining who was or wasn't a surgeon is extremely difficult
and can take hundreds of hours of research.
Please...we are
unable to respond to requests for information or research on
any surgeon
or individual, see:
Medical Officers of the 10th Corps,
in front of Fort Harrison, Virginia, April, 1865.
(National Archives)
Standing L-R:
Surgeon. C.C. Radmore, 114th USCT; Asst. Surg. J. M.
Rand, 29th Conn.; D.MacKay, 29th USCT; Unknown officer.
Seated, L-R:
Surg. J. F. Stevenson, 29th Conn.; Surg. W.A. Conover,
USV; Surg. Norton Folson, 46th USCT
Identification courtesy of Peter J. D'Onofrio, Ph.D.
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Why this research is so difficult: "Almost 6,000 regimental medical
officers, whose qualifications were initially ascertained at the state level,
also served at one time or another in the Union Army. An equivalent number of
civilian doctors unwilling or unable to join the Army worked as contract
surgeons, either for short periods when necessity dictated or in general
hospitals in the cities where they lived."
Researching, doctors, physicians and surgeons on-line
Your
best bet, and what I do, is dig deep in Google digital 'Books'. I look in the
regular web search area first, then dive into the digitized books under
‘more’. That's where you will find the medical college catalogues, medical
associations, published papers, and the doctor’s names listed with any
additional information, but there are some tricks to get the information to
come up in the search. Read the Google advanced search information to learn
how.
Try Dogpile search for multiple search engines.
Army: For Army Surgeon's, look on Google books:
Regular Army Officers and their service
records are published in Vol 1, Historical Register and Dictionary of the U.
S. Army, ... by Francis R. Heitman
Navy: You can find
pre-1900 US Navy officer service
records online.
Try the
doctor’s name with just the first and middle initials and last name
plus 'm.d.'. Put the whole name and m.d. in " " so it looks up just that
name. Try every variation as you see the names listed in lists.
Think 1860, not 2010.
Look for an
obituary or biography for the doctor and then work backwards. With any
luck an obituary will list where they went to college, where and if they
served in the Civil War, and information about where they practiced.
Try the search
with 'dr.' instead of ‘md’ and with just the first name, all kinds of
variations of the name will come up depending on what you add or omit. You
have to be very specific with the physicians because the colleges and
biography books frequently used just their initials plus last name. The ‘dr
and md’ will only work after they graduated. Knowing the state and city are
a big plus to weed out duplicate names. Also knowing and entering a date
range on Google, e.g. 1840..1860 is a trick you may not know about . It's
the '..' between dates that makes it work for a given range of dates.
If you think the
doctor was a U.S. Army surgeon, check the Roster of Regimental Surgeons (see
below) in Google digital books. You can enter just the last name and then
see what pops up, and go from there. (Note: not all surgeons were
listed in the Roster, some were in state militias and may not show up in the
Roster. None of the Confederate or contract surgeons will show up in
the Roster. Only Union uniform wearing surgeons are listed in the
Roster.)
CSA surgeons are
very difficult to find. Just keep trying everything you can think of in
Google and especially Google Books. Try Cyndie’s List which has links to various surgeon and CSA
groups.
No one said this
is easy and I’m sorry but I cannot help or do the research for you unless it
is for something I am buying from you or you wish to sell to me.
Resources I use to
research Civil War surgeons:
Again, start with Google
Search, then use Google's digital
'Books' before you look anywhere else. Searching 'books' is different
than searching normally in Google. If that doesn't turn up the name,
then:
-
First, I look in the
List of Battles and Roster of Regimental Surgeons to see if the name is
in the list of U.S. Army or Union Surgeons. This is good starting
point most of the time for regimental
U.S. Army surgeons, but does not list anywhere close to all the regular army surgeons and assistant surgeons
and none of the contract surgeons during the War. It also does not
list any CSA surgeons. You can find this
Roster on Google Digital
Books and search there via the Google search within the Roster.
-
Second, I look in a CD
which contains the AMA list of Deceased Physicians prior to 1904 to see if
the doctor's name is listed. Again, relatively few physicians are listed, but
frequently I can find contract surgeon's names in this list with graduation
dates which are consistent with a doctor being available during the War
years. You can access this database via:
Genealogy.com
at http://www.genealogy.com/507facd.html
-
Third, I look in a DVD with all
the records of the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the
Rebellion. You can obtain this DVD from Philip Oliver at the
Guild Press of Indiana for about $165. Just Google the name.
It's worth ten times that amount if you are a researcher or serious
collector as it covers thousands and thousands of pages of data. The
only problem is only the names of surgeons who were written up in
the M & S H are listed. There were thousands of
surgeons/physicians who were not written up or cited.
This is the most
comprehensive single reference source for Civil War research,
comprised of almost 200,000 pages of material, requiring a DVD to store the massive databases.
The single disc contains all of the material on our separate
Civil War related DVD products, including:
• Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies
• Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies
• Map Atlas of the Official Records (high resolution)
• National Archives Guide-Index (5 volumes)
As well as the important and hard to find Medical and Surgical
History of the War of the Rebellion - exclusive to the DVD.
Order also from Civil War America: http://www.civilwaramerica.com/
-
Fourth and finally, I go back to
Google Digital Books with any information I found via the above
methods and vary
the names, words, and phrases in your search. The more books
that are digitized by Google, the better this gets and I'm
constantly astounded at the great amount of information I can find
on-line via this resource.
Note: (June
2010) If you want to research individual names of surgeons, I also suggest you
check the web site run by Cornell Library MOA at:
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/moa_browse.html This site will
let you search the Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion.
...NO, I CANNOT DO IT FOR YOU!
When confronted with a
surgical set or other item which one wishes to identify and link with a given
surgeon be prepared for a daunting task. There is no single source which
gives you 'the' answer. There are a multitude of reasons for the
difficulty in identifying a given doctor as having been a "Civil War" doctor.
When the Civil War
began, the Army Medical Department had a standing corps of medical officers,
but no where near the number needed for the demand generated by the early
battles of the War. As volunteers were processed and accepted for duty,
the number of doctors increased greatly, but not all were accepted as Army
Regulars, some were hired as contract doctors, especially the assistant
surgeons. Few were experienced
knife wielding surgeons.
As quoted from the
republished book by Wells and Strait "List of Battles and Roster of
Regimental Surgeons", Edited by Ira M. Rutkow, M.D., ( Google Norman
Publishing for a copy of this information)
preface, Vl:
The Northern medical services were organized into seven
categories:
1.
Surgeons and Assistant Surgeons of the
United States Army. This was
the regular Medical Corps and consisted of men in the service when the war
began. The War began with only 90 medical officers, but was
drastically expanded as the war commenced.
2.
Surgeons and Assistant Surgeons of
Volunteers. These were
former "brigade surgeons" created by Congress to supplement the work of the
regular staff surgeons. A total of 547 commissions were issued.
3.
Regimental Surgeons
and Assistant Surgeons, commissioned by state governors rather than congress
or the President. There were 2,109 Surgeons and 3,882 Assistant
Surgeons. (Note: these are some of the best documented surgeons and a list of
their names is found in the "List of Battles and Roster of Regimental
Surgeons", but the list is by no means complete for the Union
surgeons.
4.
Acting Assistant Surgeons, United States
Army. These physicians were known as the 'contract' surgeons.
They held no commission but received pay as first lieutenants. There
were a total of 5,532 Acting Assistant Surgeons; most of which worked in the
general hospitals in the North. They also continued their civilian
practice at the same time. (Note: of all the so called "Civil War"
surgeons, this group is the most difficult to identify. Without
personal correspondence or other documents, it is very difficult to pinpoint
any contract surgeon as being a 'Civil War' surgeon. Ownership of a
given surgery set can help by dating that set via the makers address during
the War.)
5.
Medical officers of the Veterans Corps.
6.
Acting Staff Surgeons.
7.
Surgeons and Assistant Surgeons of the
Colored Troops, who received
presidential commissions. They were assigned to the Black troops
The Medical Service of
the Confederate States Army (CSA) is documented in Cunningham's Doctors in
Gray. It is reported the Army and Navy of the CSA had 3,237 surgeons
or assistant surgeons. These figures exclude contract physicians
who were paid on a part-time basis while still in private practice.
Unfortunately all official records of the Confederate
States Army (CSA) Medical Corp were destroyed at the end of the War.
However there are references to various CSA surgeons in the twelve volume:
Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion.
The following account
(quotes) of Civil War surgeons is from the very fine book: American Surgery:
An Illustrated History by Ira M. Rutkow, M.D. page 125 (again, available from
Norman Publishing):
"Competent or
incompetent, surgically skilled or not, vast numbers of doctors were needed
to treat the army of injured. So great was the demand that more than
12,500 physicians from the North and 3,000 for the South, not including
unknown numbers of volunteers, were called into service in either field or
civilian hospitals.
Most of the men who
served as regimental surgeons and assistant surgeons were commissioned by
state governors rather than by the Congress or President Lincoln. Full
surgeons served as captains or first lieutenants and were paid $155 and $105
per month, respectively.
These "surgeons" were
usually only capable of general medical practice. Being surgically
inept, they frequently botched the simplest of surgical operations and often
caused wounded solders more harm than good. (Note: These are the
'doctors' who gave the Civil War surgeons a bad name in the literature.
Don't forget or confuse this issue with the well trained surgeons who
carried the case load of the War on their backs.)
One particular aspect
of the Civil War was the untold numbers of civilian medical volunteers who
flocked down South after any engagement, supposedly to lend a hand with the
operative workload."
The following is a list
of sites, books, or organizations where one can search for names and try to
verify if a given doctor was or was not a surgeon or assistant surgeon during
the War. Union records are more complete, but Confederate names are
archived in various areas, but not to the same extent as the Northern
surgeons. If you have a surgical set you suspect belonged to a Civil War
surgeon it is extremely difficult research and very time consuming to do.
Unless you can provide documentation of who owned a given set, it is highly
unlikely you will be able to make positive identification.
Army
Surgeons from Yale Medical School c. 1864
Union Army surgeons:
A History of the Army Medical Department:
Civil War Medicine 1861-1865 by Mary C. Gilletty 1. (Available directly from the
U.S. Government Printing Office, Dept. of Medical History)
"The quality of the Army's
contract physicians was important, since during the course of the war more
than 5,500 civilian doctors assisted the Medical Department. Many routinely
staffed general hospitals while others provided help only in emergencies when
it was necessary to locate more physicians quickly. In the last group were
some of the nation's most prominent doctors. When a battle resulted in
overwhelming numbers of casualties, those who flocked to the scene might
include quacks, cultists, and practitioners of questionable ethics, men who
were not under military discipline and who could, therefore, come and go as
they liked, taking assignments that pleased them and rejecting all others.
They often performed unnecessary operations or wrought havoc as they dug about
for bullets. As a result of the problems experienced with doctors so casually
assembled, the Medical Department decided to call only upon members of a
reserve surgeons corps formed by the governors of various states. These
gentlemen were paid the salary of contract surgeons and came in if called.
They served under Medical Department orders and were required to remain at
their assigned posts at least fifteen days, unless officially released sooner." 1
Examples of a contract doctor pay
documents from the medical department:
Click on the thumbnails to enlarge
"The Medical Department had
intended that its detailed and copious records concerning the Union's sick and
wounded guarantee the emergence of something of value to medical science as
well as to the Army from the most frightful conflict that the nation had ever
faced. During the struggle and the months immediately following it, more than
12,000 medical officers- regulars, volunteers, and contract- examined over
250,000 wounds and treated more than 7 million cases of disease. In the course
of their duties, more than 300 Army surgeons died from wounds, disease, or
accidents."1
"Almost 6,000 regimental medical
officers, whose qualifications were initially ascertained at the state level,
also served at one time or another in the Union Army. An equivalent number of
civilian doctors unwilling or unable to join the Army worked as contract
surgeons, either for short periods when necessity dictated or in general
hospitals in the cities where they lived."1
Please...we are
unable to respond to requests for information or research on
any surgeon
or individual, see:
