It’s not a surprise that were issues with medical care in the Confederate armies. Here the Confederate administration is asking for more specifics about bad surgeons and pointing out that disease is rampant in the Union military as well.
From the Richmond Daily Dispatch October 13, 1862:
The Medical staff of the army.
–The following is the copy of a letter writer by an aid decamp of President Davis to a prominent physician of Macon county, Ala., and will explain itself:
Richmond, Sept. 1, 1862.
Dear Sir.
–I am directed by the President to inform you that your letter of August 21, 1862, is received, and the suggestions in it considered. Your strictures on the management of the medical staff of the army are perhaps severe, but not uncalled for. Many incompetent men have doubtless been appointed surgeons, but where is a competent surgeon or physician whose services have been rejected? The trouble is partly owing to the insufficient supply of medical and surgical skill in the country for an army of the size of that in the field. If, however, instead of a general censure, you would take the pains to single out and fix on any one or more surgeons the charges you make against them all, the public service would be subserved thereby.–If persons, who are aware of acts of negligence or brutality on the part of surgeons would trouble themselves to establish the fact by proof, the offender would receive the punishment due his crime or error, and become an example and a warning.
It is to be doubted whether our armies have suffered more than other armies in like situations. In less than three months McClellan has lost in front of Richmond, principally by disease, soldiers variously estimated by the Yankees at from 100,000 to 170,000 men. He has, by the most favorable accounts to him, lost two thirds of his army. This has occurred, too with unlimited resources and supplies for the care and preservation of health and mastering disease. I merely mention this to show you that disease which afflicts us does not space the enemy.
Your letter has been laid before the Surgeon-General for his information.
I have thus answered your letter at length by instructions from the President, and am directed by him to thank you for your interest in the health and welfare of our soldiers in the field.
Very respectfully, your obd’t serv’t,
Wm Preston Johnston,
Aide-de-camp to President Davis.
William Preston Johnston was captured with Jefferson Davis at the war’s end and sent to Fort Delaware. In the 1880s he worked as president of Louisiana State university and then as president of Tulane University.
Surgeon General Samuel Preston Moore “transformed the medical corps into one of the most effective departments of the Confederate military and was responsible for saving thousands of lives on the battlefield.” And he had some really cool mutton chops
