It’s been more than a decade since Pennsylvania and the nation first observed the 150th Anniversary of the Civil War. During that time, I wrote newspaper articles discussing Montour County’s contribution in material and manpower from 1861 to 1865. One of several Susquehanna Valley physicians who played a significant role in the bitter campaign was Doctor James D. Strawbridge, who was born in Liberty Township, Montour County in 1823.

  During the period just before the Civil War, a physician received minimal training. Nearly all the older doctors served as apprentices in lieu of formal education. Even those who had attended one of the few medical schools were poorly trained. In Europe, four-year medical schools were common, laboratory training was widespread, and a greater understanding of disease and infection existed. The average medical student in the United States, on the other hand, trained for two years or less, received practically no clinical experience and was given virtually no laboratory instruction. Harvard University, for instance, did not own a single stethoscope or microscope until after the war.

       When the war began, the Federal army had a total of about 98 medical officers, the Confederacy just 24. By 1865, some 13,000 Union doctors had served in the field and in the hospitals; in the Confederacy, about 4,000 medical officers and an unknown number of volunteers treated war casualties. *

*Source: The Civil War Society's "Encyclopedia of the Civil War"

    Battle’s 1887 History of Columbia and Montour Counties gives a detailed account of the Civil War record of Dr. Strawbridge.

    “Strawbridge graduated from Princeton University in 1844, and as a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Pennsylvania in 1847. Doctor Strawbridge established his practice in Danville until the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861 he entered the army as a brigade surgeon, being first assigned to duty with the division of Gen. Joseph J. Reynolds, at Cheat Mountain in western Virginia. After the resignation of Gen. Reynolds, he was for a short time at Wheeling with Gen. Rosecrans and was there transferred by Gen. McClellan to the West. At St. Louis, he was ordered by Gen. Halleck to join the army of the southwest as medical director on the staff of Gen. Curtis and reached Cassville just after the battle of Pea Ridge. Here he concentrated all the sick and wounded, transporting them as rapidly as they became able to be moved to St. Louis.

    After completing the removal of over 2,500 sick and wounded a distance of over 300 miles, he reported to Gen. Halleck's adjutant-general in St. Louis and was then ordered to join a portion of the army of the southwest then on the way to Corinth. Reaching the camp of the Army of the Mississippi at noon of the day on which the rebels evacuated Corinth, he reported first to Gen. Jefferson C. Davis, (Not the president of the Confederacy) and was a few days later transferred to the staff of Gen. Rosecrans. In consequence of continued ill health, he tendered his resignation, which both Rosecrans and Halleck declined to approve; but to retain his services in the army an arrangement was made with Dr. Chas. McDougal, medical director on Gen. Halleck's staff, by which he was assigned to the organization of general hospitals at Jackson, Tennessee. 

    Notwithstanding the many difficulties in the hospitals at Jackson, Doctor Strawbridge took care of nearly all the sick and wounded from the battles of Hatchie’s Bridge, Bolivar, Iuka, and Corinth. When the army began its movement toward Vicksburg, Dr. Strawbridge was instructed to procure trains and remove the patients to Columbus as fast as the hospital boats could transport them north, and while on this duty he was directed to look after the construction of the hospital boat "Nashville," then being rebuilt at Columbus for a receiving hospital, and was afterward assigned to the completion of the "Nashville," with directions to push the work as rapidly as possible and take the vessel down to Vicksburg. On the 1st of March, he reached Young's Point, and on the 3^rd, patients were received on board. By the 6th he had received and taken care of 1,900 sick men. A large convalescent hospital was established at Milliken's Bend, to which a considerable portion of these men were transferred, and the "Nashville" moved up to that point. Here, the "Nashville," which had been designed only for a receiving hospital, became against the protest of Dr. Strawbridge, a permanent general hospital and for three months contained an average of about 1,000 patients, most of them the sickest of the army.

The Battle of Milliken’s Bend was fought on June 7th, 1863, and was part of the Vicksburg Campaign. To cut Union General Grant's supply line and relieve the siege on Vicksburg, Confederates attacked the Union supply area at Milliken's Bend, 15 miles to the northwest of Vicksburg. Doctor James Strawbridge saw the aftereffects firsthand. He wrote home to a friend three days after the battle. The ship was moored between Young's Point and Milliken's Bend and Strawbridge described what he and his men saw after the fighting had ended.

"After the battle, many of my men went up to see the field and there lay dead rebel and Negro side by side in the ditch. In several instances, the dead Negro and white man lay with their bayonets each through the other. We have 114 of the wounded blacks on this boat -- and some of them have as high as four bayonet wounds in them and three or four balls." Strawbridge offered his opinion regarding the fighting abilities of the black soldiers. " There is no use of talking the question of negroes fighting is settled -- they fight with a degree of intelligence and determination unequaled by the whites."  He concluded, "And I am satisfied that using them will save us a great many men and aid very materially in suppressing the Rebellion."   

    After Dr. Strawbridge was relieved from charge of the "Nashville," he was ordered to report in person to U. S. Grant. While making up his accounts for the transfer of property, etc., to his successor, Dr. Strawbridge was prostrated with congestive chills, and for a time his life was despaired of, but he finally rallied, and, as soon as able to travel, reported to Dr. Mills at Gen. Grant's headquarters. Still being too weak for duty, however, he was directed to return to the river till convalescent.

    On July 7, Dr. Strawbridge was sent for by Gen. Grant, and assigned to examination of soldiers in hospitals, etc., for the purpose of discharge assignment to the invalid corps under the following order and verbal instructions: "Surgeon Strawbridge is hereby directed to visit Young's Point, Milliken’s Bend and elsewhere and discharge all such soldiers as in his judgment he may see fit." The Doctor's health having again thoroughly broken down, Dr. Ormsby, with whom he had his quarters in Vicksburg, went to Gen. Grant on August 14 and obtained an order directing him to go on board the hospital steamer "R. C. Wood," which left Vicksburg that night, and report by letter to the war department from his home. This was very much against his own wishes; he had been offered the medical directorship on the dividing up of the army at Vicksburg, of any part he might desire.

     In October, he was ordered before a military commission in Washington, which recommended a longer furlough. In November he was sent before a military board at Annapolis, who disapproved of his request to be ordered to duty and recommended his being sent to hospital for treatment. He then asked to be mustered out of the service; the board also disapproved of this, and light duty was recommended. He was then assigned to duty in the provost-marshal-general department, and sent by Gen. Frey to Philadelphia, and afterward to Harrisburg, to superintend the examination of recruits.

     In May 1864, finding his health nearly restored, he again asked for duty in the field, and on the 18th of May, was ordered to report for duty to Gen. B. F. Butler, at Bermuda Hundred. Immediately after his arrival, he was directed to follow up with the Eighteenth Army Corps, then on the way up the York River, to join the army under Grant, near White House, (Virginia). On his arrival at that place, the battle of Cold Harbor had just been fought, in which the Eighteenth Army Corps bore the principal part and lost nearly 5,000 men. The base hospital for the corps was being organized, and, finding his services likely to be of more value there than at the front, he remained there on duty as an operating surgeon for five days, during which time he was continuously employed from daylight until dark, performing many of the most important operations.

    On June 8, he reported to Gen. Baldy Smith and was temporarily assigned to the second division under Gen. Martindale. The Eighteenth Corps was at that time withdrawing from the trenches, and, in the night following, marched back to White House, and were from there transferred by boats to the Appomattox River. Immediately after their arrival, the Eighteenth Corps commenced its advance on Petersburg. Dr. Strawbridge was here transferred to the medical directorship of the corps. Here Dr. Strawbridge reorganized the medical department and ambulance corps. On October 27, 1864, while the Eighteenth Corps was making a movement on the extreme right of the line in front of Richmond, Dr. Strawbridge was captured by rebel scouts, while on the flanks of the corps looking for a road by which he expected to send back his ambulance trains. He was held at the notorious Libby Prison until paroled on January 20, 1865.

    Returning to report at Annapolis, at the termination of his parole furlough, he was subpoenaed by the United States District Court, and had to return to Philadelphia, where he was temporarily assigned to duty as president of a medical examining board. Dr. John Campbel, medical director of the Department of Pennsylvania, made an application to the War Department to have his assignment made permanent, but this was refused on the ground that Gen. John Gibbon had previously made application to have Dr. Strawbridge assigned to his staff, as medical director of the Eighteenth Army Corps, and by Gen. E. O. C. Ord, as medical director of the Army of the James. Dr. Strawbridge remained on duty in Philadelphia, on the board until his services were no longer required in that capacity; was breveted for meritorious services, and, on September 4, 1865, was mustered out of the service of the United States. In the fall of 1867, he resumed the practice of medicine in Danville. In 1872 he was elected to the 43^rd Congress of the United States.”

 On the evening of July 18th, 1890, accompanied by Dr. E. A. Curry, Strawbridge was on his way to see a patient on whom he had performed an operation the week previously About three miles out of Danville, he turned and said his hand felt numb. He was quickly driven home, but the paralysis deepened. He was conscious for three hours, then became unconscious and died early on the morning of July 19^th.

  Dr. Strawbridge is buried in Fairview Cemetery, Danville Pennsylvania. His Liberty Township home still stands along Route 45 between Danville and Lewisburg. The stone two-story is a private residence.