When I was a boy, we would travel to Civil War battlefields. While visiting these parks, I would see hardly a mention of medical care during these massive bloodlettings. There might be an old house that had a sign in front of it saying it was used as a Civil War hospital, but you could not go into it. I looked in the windows of a few of these hospitals and there was nothing inside of them indicating that care for the wounded had been going on there in the 1860s.
Since the 1990s, there has been a lot of attention to medical care for the wounded and sick soldiers at battlefields and hospital sites throughout the conflictive areas. There are markers delineating where field hospitals were set up. I have traveled to battlefields where churches, houses, and barns have been restored to show care for the wounded that occurred during Civil War battles. Ambulances and operating tables have been added to battlefield parks. There are also statues of prominent people connected to medical care like the Clara Barton statue between Antietam and Gettysburg. Most important of all are several comprehensive museums where the entirety of medical care can be studied. One of the most important sites is the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, Maryland. The museum is located at 48 E Patrick St, Frederick, MD 21701 and its website is here.
The museum is open on:
Monday-Saturday:Â 10:00am to 5:00pm
Sundays:Â 11:00am to 5:00pm
Last admittance to the galleries at 4:00 PM.
The admittance is:
- Adults ……………………………. $9.50
- Seniors (65+) ………………… $8.50
- Students ……………………….. $7.00
- Military (with ID) …………… $8.50
- Children 9 and under are free.
The museum is located in downtown Frederick, Maryland in a building that existed at the time of the Civil War. Frederick saw both Union and Confederate troops march down its streets in 1862, 1863, and 1864.
The building played a role in care for the wounded, or at least for the formerly wounded. It served as an embalming station for those who died nearby.
Frederick played a central role in the Battle of Gettysburg, Antietam, and Monocacy, and in addition to learning about medicine you can also learn about the war’s impact on this small city. The museum also offers tours of the neighborhood for those wanting to get a personal view of the city in time of war.
The museum is operated by a private nonprofit. It opened in 1996 and moved to its current location in 2000. The museum is undergoing 3.5 million dollars in rehab work, although it will remain open until March, 2027. It will then close down and will reopen Memorial Day.
One of the first tings you will see after you enter the building is an exhibit on Civil War medical myths. For example, the museum lays out the myth that wounded soldiers had to “bite the bullet” to deal with painful wounds. The exhibit says this is a myth since 91% of operation were done under anesthesia. Throughout the museum there is good, up to date historical interpretation that dispels myths that all of us learned.
The museum also confronts the myth that doctors and surgeons were uneducated and of poor quality, and more akin to witchdoctors than scientifically trained medical personnel. While we know vastly more about medicine than doctors did in the 1860s, these professionals were always trying to improve their skills. So, for example, surgeons used teaching aids like this anatomical device to learn how the bone structure of the arm and hand functioned.
We are also exposed to the latest developments of Mid-19th Century, like devices to let blood flow. This practice did not achieve its desired end, but it was the latest science of the 1860s.
Other devices seemed strange now, like this knife for vaccination, but effective vaccination did keep out some contagious diseases that would have carried off tens of thousands of sufferers.
Some of the devices were effective like the stethoscope, but others were not, like cupping.
There are also exhibits on how the army tried to prepare soldiers for injury and disease. To keep soldiers from suffering from the sun and heat stroke, soldiers could wear a white covering reducing the temperature of the head and reducing sunburn on the back of the neck.
When men enlisted in the army, doctors examined them and could disqualify recruits if they had physical disabilities. They would also reject recruits if they were under 5 foot 3 inches tall because they would be too weak to stand army life. If a recruit was over 6’3”, they would also be rejected.
The museum offers us statistics on the average soldier, like this panel.
After recruitment, the museum looks at camp life. Many soldiers died in camp before they ever fought in a battle from communicable disease and poor sanitary conditions. Living in tents also left soldiers exposed to heat, cold, and rain for months at a time.
The museum also looks at the mental health of the men, including rest and relaxation.
Doctors often interacted with the men in their units outside of the traditional hospital. They might give vaccinations, take care of common illnesses, or tend wounds on a daily basis.
A number of servicemen would use “patent medicine,” the medical outgrowth of 19th Century capitalism. The inventors of these “medicines” were trying to make money off of other peoples’ suffering. While the patent medicines would make a patient feel better, they often did so through incorporating alcohol and opium into the formula, leaving the “patient” with long-term disabilities.
There is also a display on how patients coped with being in hospitals for weeks recovering from wounds and illnesses. Below is a homemade chessboard made by Corporal John Barker as he was recovering from a skull fracture.
There is also this ceremonial tea set present by the doctors of the Army of the Potomac to Jonathan Letterman. He was the medical director of that army and his innovative system of taking wounded men off the field of battle, his ambulance corps, and his triage system helped save many lives.
Here is Letterman’s desk. It was designed so that it could be easily disassembled, transported, and then reassembled.
The card on the desk tells how it “helped save lives.”
One of Letterman’s innovations was his unique ambulance corps, professionalizing the removal of wounded from the battlefield and systematically bringing them to field hospitals.
The trained medical staff, the ambulance, and the beasts of burden were important components in Letterman’s system.
While some transport was provided by ambulance or cart, medical saddlebags also played an important part. The saddlebag below has the name of the surgeon who owned it. He was attached to the 7th New York Heavy Artillery.
Transportation was also provided on stretchers. Below is a Sanitary Commission stretcher which was used in by a Union doctor in West Virginia.
There are also displays of more mundane items like bottles for medicine, and socks, including one with blood it, for wounded men.
Below is a rope and pole stretcher that was used by Confederates.
There is also a display on wounded Confederate prisoners on the field of battle.
You can see a Union surgeon and attendant caring for a Confederate soldier below.
These field hospitals performed heroic work. As the sign says below, these were located as close to the front as possible, but behind a hill or rock face to protect the staff and wounded soldiers.
This exhibit looks at the men risking their lives at the field hospitals.
The next exhibit shows a Confederate field hospital from the reception of ambulances, to the medical operation, to the post-operative recovery.
There are several exhibits on the implements of medical care used by surgeons and doctors.
There is also an extensive collection of splints to set broken bones.
Several exhibits look at the uniforms of doctors, hospital stewards, and nurses.
A handy drug chest of 48 medical drugs that could be carried by a doctors out in the field.
More implements of healing.
There are also relics of disease from 160 years ago like this gangrenous hand.
Those who survived the trip to the field hospital would, when stable, be sent to large hospitals. In the east, the Army of the Potamic set up large hospital complexes outside Washington and cities like New York and Philadelphia.
Instead of having a tiny portable drug satchel, the doctors could ask the Hospital Steward, the highest ranking NCO in the hospital, to prepare medications from a well-equipped medicine cabinet.
As you can, the major hospitals were well-equipped with many of the accoutrements that we still recognize today.
Women were largely excluded from attending to wounded men in 1861. As the need for nurses overwhelmed the previously all-male nursing coops, single women began to provide services. While very few women were trained as nurses at the start of the war, over time they were educated and by 1863 many of the women were as good at being nurses as the men. Among the best were the Catholic nuns. The nuns were used to working together as a team, following orders, and seeing religious devotion in caring for the sick. And unlike laywomen, the nuns were not looking for a husband.
There were many tributes to the nursing sisters, even at a time of blatant bigotry against Catholics.
There are a number of emblematic relics of hospital equipment.
Then, for those who could not be helped, the men would enter the private enterprise section of the economy. They might be sent to an embalmer if their family had enough money. 
The embalmer exhibit is based on a famous Civil War photograph.
The National Museum of Civil War Medicine is an excellent tour of all forms of medical care and illness and wounds of the Civil War Era. My only issue is that there was not enough coverage of female nurses, of immigrants, or of African American caretakers, who could range from nurses to washerwomen, as well as a few Black doctors. Hopefully with the revamp coming up next year this will be addressed.
After I visited the museum I went outside the city to the Anchor Bar. Having lived in Buffalo, New York I used to love going to the Anchor Bar where the Buffalo Chicken Wing was “invented.” Well, the bar, which used to just be one place, now has a half dozen locations, including in Frederick. It is a good place to go for authentic Buffalo wings, not at all like the crappy Buffalo Wild Wings. You can get a Labatt’s and settle in to make your order.
It is a sports bar and the original Anchor Bar is a staging area for Buffalo Bills fans. Here, you can root for whoever is your favorite team.
There is a Bills Backers section where Bills Mafia, of which I am a dedicated member, can watch games.
Between the Bills and the Sabers they have not won an NFL or NHL championship. Oh well.
When the Bills sign a new player, the reporters always ask “Blue Cheese or Ranch?” The answer should be Blue Cheese.
500 miles from Buffalo you can still get Buffalo merch.
The wings were good. If you go, try the Buffalo Sauce with Blue Cheese.
If you don’t like wings, try the Beef on Weck with is fresh sliced roast beef on Kimmelweck rolls with horseradish and au jus. This is also a traditional dish from Buffalo.
Note: All color photos of buildings in this post were taken by Patrick Young except as noted.
