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Howard, Tazewell.

[Manuscript Civil War Letter by a Confederate Assistant Surgeon Attempting to Secure Post as Surgeon in Chief].

Camp Harrison, Georgia, Nov. 12 1861. 8vo, ruled sheet. 1.5 pp.

A Confederate surgeon’s letter illuminating medical aspects of the Civil War.

Tazewell Howard, newly arrived assistant surgeon to George Paul Harrison’s training camp outside Savannah, Georgia, describes his new appointment and attempts to use his connections to secure a higher paying post. He reports a certain dissatisfaction with his lot at the moment:

My Regt left yesterday morning for Savannah—I was left behind to attend to about one hundred sick left behind in Hospital & Tents. I was anxious to go with my Regiment—It is the finest Regiment in the Brigade

Although the camp is “one of the nicest places I ever saw” and his associate surgeon is “a good Physician and a gentle man,” he wishes to be appointed “1st Surgeon of some Regiment or Hospital[…]I was in the mexican war nearly two years and in Philadelphia and New York nearly five years. I think, I can do full justice to the position.” The addressee of his letter, J. M. Cantrel[l] of Campbellton County, would become a highly respected Confederate Lieutenant.

CONDITION: Good, a bit of separation at old folds.

REFERENCES: Hancock’s Diary: Or, A History of the Second Tennessee Confederate Cavalry, pp. 611.

Item #3712

Price: $375.00