Preview: Scott McGaugh, “Surgeon in Blue”

New from Arcade Publishing is Surgeon in Blue: Jonathan Letterman, The Civil War Doctor Who Pioneered Battlefield Care, by Scott McGaugh. Many of the advances in medical practices that have resulted in increased survival rates among battlefield wounded can be traced to Army of the Potomac medical director Jonathan Letterman. Mr. McGaugh has consulted a wide range of sources – primarily published secondary – in this biography of the preeminent medical figure of the war. Mr. McGaugh also consulted the good folks at the Jefferson College Historical Society in Letterman’s hometown of nearby Canonsburg, PA. It’s a little known fact (I know it’s little known, because my PCP got his MD at Jefferson and was unaware) that the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, founded by George McClellan’s father, derived it’s name from Jefferson College in Canonsburg in Southwestern PA, and Letterman was educated at both schools. Jefferson College merged early in the war with Washington College in nearby Washington, PA, and survives today as Washington & Jefferson College in the latter place. Besides folks like Letterman and Clement Vallandigham, these two schools count a surprising number of Civil War general officers (including Confederates Albert Gallatin Jenkins and Henry Wise) among their alumni. But I digress. The book has received the imprimatur of George Wunderlich of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine. Check it out!