Mellon Scholars 2026: Ryan Melinn – The Library Company of Philadelphia

Mellon Scholars Summer Program – Subject Guides

Civil War Medical Ideas: African American Actors in Nineteenth-Century Medicine

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Overview:

This subject guide examines the influence of African Americans on medicine during the Civil War era and challenges narratives that portray Black people as passive observers of nineteenth-century history. From enslaved healers and midwives on Southern plantations to nurses, teachers, spies, laborers, and physicians during and after the Civil War, African Americans played essential roles in the creation, transmission, and practice of medical knowledge.

The guide explores the experiences of figures such as Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler, the first African American woman to earn a medical degree in the United States; Harriet Tubman, who employed herbal remedies while serving the Union army; and Mary Jane Richards (Mary Bowser), a Union spy connected to Richmond’s wartime networks. It also investigates the labor of enslaved and freed African Americans in hospitals, contraband camps, military fortifications, and transportation systems between 1861 and 1865.

Using medical texts, wartime narratives, archival records, and modern scholarship, this project highlights how African American knowledge and labor sustained both civilian and military health systems. At the same time, it examines contemporary debates about race, science, and medicine, revealing the contradictions between racist theories of human difference and the indispensable contributions Black Americans made to Civil War-era society.

About the Author:

Ryan Melinn is a senior at Gettysburg College who has focused his studies and private research on civilian accounts of the American Civil War. Ryan has been a tour guide in Gettysburg for the last four years. He is very excited to explore the archives at The Library Company and explore the influence of African American individuals in the medical field during the Civil War era.

Keywords

Contributors:

Rebecca Lee Crumpler
Harriet Tubman
Mary Jane Richards (Mary Bowser)
Elizabeth Van Lew
Robert Knox Sneden
Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church
United States Colored Troops
Freedmen’s Bureau.

Subject Headings:

African Americans—Medical care
African American nurses; African American physicians
Civil War medicine
Contrabands
Emancipation
Freedpeople
Plantation medicine
Herbal medicine
Midwifery
Military hospitals
United States Colored Troops
Slavery—Health and hygiene
Confederate labor systems
Race and science
Medical racism
African American women
Espionage—Civil War
Reconstruction
Richmond (Va.)—History—Civil War.

Access Terms:

Advertisements
Pamphlets
Diaries
Memoirs
Medical treatises
Publisher’s advertisements
Sammelbands
Wove paper

Annotated Bibliography

Resources at LCP:

“A Book for All Time! Will Be Ready in June, 1882. Every Lady Should Own One of Doctress R. Crumpler’s Book of Discourses on the Cause, Prevention, and Cure of Infantile Stomach and Bowel Complaints.” (Readville, MA, 1881).

An advertisement for “Doctress R. Crumpler’s” Book of Discourses, scheduled for release in June 1882. The advertisement includes glowing endorsements from two white male physicians, with Isaac Wetherbee, M.D., referring to Crumpler as a credible Doctor and H. Stacy, M.D., declaring that the book “should become a household companion of every family.” Although Crumpler was the first African American woman to earn a medical degree in the United States, the advertisement never mentions her race. Instead, it emphasizes professional authority and white medical endorsements, likely reflecting concerns that openly identifying Crumpler as a Black woman might limit the book’s appeal among white readers.

Edward B. Foote, Sammy Tubbs, the Boy Doctor and “Sponsie,” the Troublesome Monkey (New York: Murray Hill Publishing Co., 1885).

Edward B. Foote uses the character of Sammy Tubbs to write an educational book on medicine for a young audience. The book demonstrates conflicting ideologies about race. Using the metaphor of the monkey, Foote writes on page 13 that “The monkey can be nothing but a monkey… but I shall show you that a boy, whether enveloped in a white or black skin, can… progress in goodness and intelligence.” Despite arguing that white and black children have the same capacity for learning in this quote, Foote later goes on to use the character of Sammy Tubbs to encourage white readers through their inferred superiority over the child: “While reading these volumes keep up with Sammy. Do not let a little black boy do better than you.” (15)

James Aitken Meigs, Observations upon the Form of the Occiput in the Various Races of Men (Philadelphia: Merrihew & Thompson, 1860).

Bound together with a series of other pamphlets published in 1860 relating to race in the Library Company of Philadelphia’s collection, James Meigs finds a different conclusion than other authors such as Sidney George Fisher. Implied in the text but stated directly in the seventh footnote, Meigs writes that the skulls in the collection “graduate into each other, more or less insensibly. None of these forms can be said to belong exclusively to any race or tribe. None of them, therefore, can be regarded as strictly typical.” In other words, there’s differentiation in the skulls of all races, and therefore they can not be categorized as separate species, as Fisher argues in The Laws of Race.

Rebecca Lee Crumpler, A Book of Medical Discourses: In Two Parts (Boston, 1883).

Rebecca Crumpler’s book about women’s and infant’s health from birth until the conclusion of the teething period. The word “colored” is only used once, on page 2 of the introduction, and refers to the 30,000 patients she attended to in Richmond following the Civil War. The words color*, negro*, or Africa* do not appear at all except for the noted use of “colored” on page 2. The book focuses on the prevention of disease and argues that improper care is the cause of high mortality in infants.

Sidney George Fisher, The Laws of Race, as Connected with Slavery (Philadelphia: Willis P. Hazard, 1860).
Sidney Fisher seeks to understand “the slavery question” by “study[ing] the nature of the white man and of the negro.” (8) Fisher defines different races of man as different species, and argues that there are also subspecies within a species. Of the species, Fisher places the white man on top – capable of intellectual thought and civilization – and the black man on the bottom, capable of only barbarianism. The main justification for this argument is found on page 10: “The average size of the brain of the white is 92 cubic inches, of the negro 83.” His findings are in direct contrast to James Meigs’s Observations upon the Form of the Occiput.

Other Resources:

“Breaking Free: The Life of Rebecca Lee Crumpler.” National Museum of Civil War Medicine, November 4, 2024, https://www.civilwarmed.org/rebecca-lee-crumpler/.

Rebecca Crumpler was the first African American woman to receive a medical degree. She graduated from the New England Female Medical College in 1864, and in 1865 she moved to Richmond to care for the newly freed population of Virginia. She eventually moved back north and continued her medical practice focused on women and children’s health.

Mother Bethel AME Church. Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church Records, “The Third Church” section. Richard Allen Museum Archives, Philadelphia, PA. Finding Aid, University of Pennsylvania Libraries. https://findingaids.library.upenn.edu/records/SMREP_RAMA.01.
This Finding Aid from the University of Pennsylvania offers an overview of the institution’s history, including Mother Bethel’s role in the recruiting of black Philadelphian soldiers in the American Civil War.

Nellie Aughinbaugh, Civilian Narrative of the Battle of Gettysburg, in Adams County Historical Society Archives, page 12 (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, n.d.)

Nellie Aughinbaugh’s account of the Battle of Gettysburg details the work of Gettysburg civilians as nurses. In many hospital sites, Union and Confederate soldiers were treated together. On page 12, Aughinbaugh describes a specific instance where a Confederate soldier told one of the women that in the South, women would not be forced to do the work of nursing, but rather, “This is what one of our [n******] would do.”

S. Emma E. Edmonds, Nurse and Spy in the Union Army: Comprising the Adventures and Experiences of a Woman in Hospitals, Camps, and Battle-Fields (Hartford, CT, 1865).

S. Emma E. Edmond’s narrative shows that enslaved and freed Black people were essential to both Confederate and Union military operations. In Confederate camps, the author notes that “the negroes went to work immediately on the fortifications after reporting to their overseers,” (112) emphasizing their central role in building military infrastructure. In Union-held areas “the men were employed in loading and unloading Government vessels, and the women were busily engaged in cooking and washing,” underscoring how their labor sustained daily army life. (72) Edmond would disguise herself as Black to cross into Confederate lines unnoticed, and spy on important Generals unnoticed, highlighting the invisibility of the black laborers to their Confederate counterparts.

Singleton, Maura. “Flashback Friday: Harriet Tubman’s Overlooked Story as a Nurse.” UVA School of Nursing, University of Virginia, 8 Nov. 2019, https://nursing.virginia.edu/news/flashback-harriet-tubman-nurse/.

Harriet Tubman and other African American women served as nurses during the Civil War, treating wounded soldiers in hospitals such as Freedmen’s Hospital and Fort Monroe. She used herbal remedies learned from her mother, including roots and plants like cranesbill and lily, to treat fever and disease. Despite this work, she received no pay or official recognition as a nurse, even after the Union Army Nurses Pension Act was passed. Her service was only indirectly acknowledged through an increase in her husband’s pension, not through recognition of her own labor.

Sneden, Robert Knox. Diary of Robert Knox Sneden, Vol. 5, 1863–1864. Privately published manuscript, 1863–1864.

Robert Knox Sneden’s diary provides valuable insight into the treatment of Black laborers and Black soldiers in Confederate hands, especially in prison and camp settings. He notes captured Black contrabands were “in mortal terror all the time,” showing the constant fear of enslaved laborers under Confederate questioning. (130) In prison camps, Black prisoners were forced to work under armed guard, with orders that “if they answered us he would shoot them at once,” while others were “lashed to death” and their cries “plainly heard” at night. (688, 602) Sneden also records extreme neglect of wounded Black soldiers, as none of the Black prisoners were permitted to receive medical care. The diary demonstrates how race shaped access to medical treatment, labor expectations, and survival within Confederate prison systems.

Reference Books:

Downs, Jim. Sick from Freedom: African-American Illness and Suffering during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Oxford University Press, 2012.

Sick from Freedom argues that African Americans were actively employed by the Union army as cooks, teamsters, and laborers once emancipated people entered federal camps. Ulysses S. Grant notes that freedpeople were only fed when “employed as teamsters, cooks, and pioneers,” directly linking survival to military labor. (50)

Levin, Kevin M. Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth. University of North Carolina Press, 2019.

Kevin Levin focuses on the widespread use of enslaved and impressed Black laborers in Confederate armies for logistics, camp work, and medical support. Enslaved men served as teamsters, cooks, hospital attendants, and laborers, with thousands integrated into armies like Lee’s. Searching for Black Confederates counters the false narrative of Black Confederate soldiers while simultaneously highlighting the importance of Black labor in the Confederacy’s successes.

Fett, Sharla M. Working Cures: Healing, Health, and Power on Southern Slave Plantations. University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

Sharla Fett shows the central role of enslaved and freed African Americans in medical knowledge and care, particularly through herbal remedies and plantation medicine. Enslaved healers like Elsey, the appointed Doctress of Thorn Island Plantation, acted as primary doctors and midwives, treating enslaved and white patients alike and managing plantation health systems. The text also demonstrates that enslaved medical knowledge was widely used, even when elite white physicians like Francis Porcher rebranded it as “negro remedies.” Working Cures argues that African American knowledge was foundational to Civil War–era medical practice despite lack of recognition.

Gamble, Vanessa Northington. The Black Community Hospital: Contemporary Dilemmas in Historical Perspective. Garland Publishing, 1989.

Vanessa Gamble gives a brief overview of pre Civil War hospitals created for the Black population in Chapter 1. She lists “slave hospitals” found on plantations, as well as Georgia Infirmary, a hospital in Savannah established by white doctors in 1832 to treat Black patients. The hospital in Savannah operated more as a welfare institution, which did include medical aid, but “the home served as the primary site for medical care.” (6)

Varon, Elizabeth R. Southern Lady, Yankee Spy: The True Story of Elizabeth Van Lew, a Union Agent in the Heart of the Confederacy. Oxford University Press, 2003.

Although titled for Elizabeth Van Lew, an upper class white lady from Richmond, Elizabeth R. Varon also uses Southern Lady, Yankee Spy to depict the life of Mary Jane Richards, who was a detective for the Union during the Civil War. Richards was technically Van Lew’s property, but the women worked together to aid the Union cause.