The 6th Kentucky was a unit of the famous Orphan Brigade throughout the war. The regiment was organized at Bowling Green 19 November 1861, and Dr. R.R. Stevenson, pending commission, belonged nominally to the Sixth Kentucky Infantry, and when on 18 December 1861 he was commissioned assistant surgeon, he was assigned to that regiment. Serving it faithfully with this rank for a year, he was promoted to surgeon, (December 1862). He continued to do field duty till January 1864, when he was assigned to duty in the Andersonville prison.
Thomas Newberry enlisted as a private in Company F, 6th Regiment, but he was almost immediately recognized for his skills and knowledge and was promoted to Hospital Steward.
John L. Vertrees signed on as Assistant Surgeon, and the medical staff underwent little change throughout the war.
The 6th regimental hospital was with the troops of the 6th, examining, treating, bandaging, and performing surgery on their wounded, sometimes remaining behind with the wounded for days to try to meet the needs of all of their men.
The total number of Dead in the Civil War: 624,511. Up until the Vietnam War, the number killed in the Civil War surpassed all other wars combined.
The surgeons were “faithful officers, unremitting in attention to their duties. As good surgeons they were capable of rendering valuable service to their command. They shared in all its trials and vicissitueds afterward, surrendering with it at the last.
(History of the First Kentucky Brigade, Thompson)
(Confederate wounded, (Confederate Field Hospital, Cedar
Keedsy, MD; photo in public domain) Mountain, VA; photo in public domain)
Under the agreement of the Geneva Convention, medical officers are now officially neutral. This status cannot free them from the dangers of battle, in which they, of course, must share, but operates to exempt them from retention as prisoners of war.
Such was not the case in the first year of the Civil War, when surgeons were captured and immured in military prisons like combatant officers. Medical officers were thus often forced to make the hard choice of deserting the wounded under their care, often including patients from both sides who were urgently requiring attention, or of remaining and submitting to capture, with all the rigors and sufferings that this implied.
But General Jackson, after the battle of Winchester, in May, 1862, where he had captured the Federal division hospitals, took the ground that as the surgeons did not make war they should not suffer its penalties, and returned them unconditionally to their own forces. The neutral status of the surgeons, thus recognized for the first time, was subsequently formally agreed upon between Generals McClellan and Lee, though later the agreement was for a time interrupted.
The idea that those engaged in mitigating the horrors of war should not be treated like those who create them, met with instant popular approval in both North and South, was subsequently advanced in Europe, and the humanitarian idea developed in this country was advocated until officially taken up by the great nations and agreed upon by them under the Geneva Convention.
In connection with the foregoing, the record of the casualties among the regular and volunteer Federal medical officers during the Civil War is of interest. Thirty-two were killed in battle or by guerrillas; nine died by accident; eighty-three were wounded in action, of whom ten died; four died in Confederate prisons; seven died of yellow fever, three of cholera, and two hundred and seventy-one of other diseases, most of which were incidental to camp life or the result of exposure in the field.
