November 15 & 16, 2022 Extraordinary Firearms & Militaria
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 11/15/2022
This impressive 3-tier cased amputation set belonged to Surgeon F.W. Patterson of the 17th Mississippi, who was at Gettysburg and remained behind to care for the wounded of Barksdale’s Brigade when the army fell back. The set is a military style kit with latches and many of the tools are marked Hernstein, along with at least 2 marked “U.S.A. / HOSP. DEP’T,” indicating a possibly captured set. The case is lined in purple velvet and includes the amputation saw, tourniquet, bone nippers, knives, trephines, etc. A few tools may postdate the war, which is not uncommon in sets retained by doctors still practicing later, as Hartzler’s notes indicate Patterson did for some years. The oval lid escutcheon is engraved “DR. F.W. Patterson / Jackson, Miss.”; Francis W. Patterson began his medical practice at Jackson, Missouri, in in 1859 at the State Lunatic Asylum. Although a Connecticut native and educated in Ohio, he joined a Mississippi company, eventually part of the 18th Mississippi, at Jackson as a private April 22, 1861. Deemed more valuable as a doctor than private in the battleline, he was appointed an Assistant Surgeon September 2, 1861, and assigned to the 20th Georgia, joining it at Union Mills, near Manassas on September 12 and was with the regiment at Yorktown in March-April 1862. He was appointed full Surgeon and assigned to the 17th Mississippi in June 1862. (Some Georgia records indicate the transfer may not have happened until January 1863, but that may be more a matter of bookkeeping.) During his time with that unit, it fought in the Seven Days, at Antietam, losing 89 of 270, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, where as part of Barksdale’s Brigade it took part in his charge of July 2 that finished off Sickles’s attempted salient at the Peach Orchard, losing 200 out of 469 on the field. When the Confederate army retreated, Patterson remained behind in the field hospital with the wounded of the brigade. Records indicate he was there until early August when he was taken in charge of the Provost Marshal and transferred to Fort McHenry in Baltimore, officially exchanged in November and back with the regiment by January 1864. The regiment saw continued hard service at Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg and in the Valley under Early, where it fought at Cedar Creek, returning to the Richmond front in late November. It surrendered at Appomattox with just 3 officers and 62 men, having lost some 127 men killed and 779 wounded during its service. Records list Patterson as Surgeon with the unit into March 1865. Hartzler’s notes indicate he surrendered at Appomattox and moved to Catonsville, Maryland, after the war, eventually turning to farming. Patterson’s service is summarized on pg. 66 of “Medical Doctors of Maryland in the C.S.A.” and the kit is accompanied by research and notes from the Hartzler Collection. CONDITION: Excellent.
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