Originally aired on March 20, 1998 - In part 186 of our Civil War series, Virginia Tech history professor James Robertson profiles the accomplishments of Samuel Preston Moore, the Surgeon General of the Confederacy.
#186 – Dr. Samuel Preston Moore
The Confederacy was born in need, and it died in poverty. A land dominated by agriculture, lacking industries, isolated by the Union naval blockade and slowly chocked to death by advancing Federal armies was unable to concentrate the resources necessary to meet the heavy demand of war. That is why the accomplishments of the Confederate States Medical Department was so improbable. Its achievements in the face of adversity are due to one factor, Samuel Preston Moore.
A native of Charleston, Moore graduated from the Medical College of South Caroline in 1834. For the next twenty-six years, he was an Army surgeon. Moore had no enthusiasm over the coming of Civil War and he sought to remain apart from it. Yet in the summer of 1861, he reluctantly agreed to become Surgeon General of the Confederacy.
Moore was then forty-eight, above medium height and well-formed. The most striking feature of his appearance were huge bushy sideburns that extended almost to his shoulders. His first duty in Richmond was to organize a medical department. His next duty was to make it functional in a clearly un-functional atmosphere. Both paths were exceedingly difficult.
Few physicians of that day had any knowledge of military medicine. Most were unskilled in surgery and hospital management. Efforts by Moore were constant, tireless, and innovative. He established examining boards to weed out unqualified physicians who had gained regimental surgeons posts in the first enthusiastic days of war.
To combat shortages in medicines, Moore set up four pharmaceutical laboratories to manufacture substitute medicines from ingredients native to Southern fields and forest. Cotton seed tea were used in place of quinine. Wild cherries used for digitalis. Hemlock for opium. Dandelion for chamomile.
The Surgeon General devised a system of individual ward buildings administered in group fashion. Typical of this new arrangement was Chimborazo Hospital. Located on hills east of downtown Richmond, Chimborazo’s 120 buildings could handle 3,500 patients at a time.
The improvement of medical knowledge was another of Moore’s goals. He founded and presided over the Association of Army and Navy Surgeons of the Confederate States. Moore endorsed the publication of the Confederate States Medical and Surgical Journal. Which, despite shortages of paper and ink, ran from January, 1864 through February, 1865. Moore himself wrote a field surgical manual and compiled a book on beneficial Southern plant resources.
The Surgeon General also found time to supervise 3,000 physicians in the armies and military hospitals scattered all over the Confederacy. In all, his medical department treated three million cases of wounds and disease among Confederate soldiers and over 200,000 instances of sickness among Federal prisoners of war.
He was not a likeable man. A fellow surgeon said of Moore, “within his domain he had absolute power. The emperor of Russia was not more autocratic. Dr. Moore commanded and it was done.” When war ended, Dr. Moore ceased practicing medicine.
Until his death in 1889, he made his home in Richmond and was a pioneer in Virginia public education. Few men achieved so much good and knew so little acclaim as Samuel Moore. One reason for this was the fire that swept through Richmond and its evacuation in April, 1965. Flames consumed all of Moore’s official records and private papers.
Still, one admirer observed, “where or under what government so complicated and extensive as the Southern Confederacy was there ever a department of the public service characterized by such order and precision.”