Abstract
The National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, Maryland, houses numerous letters, maps, medical supplies, and other artifacts pertaining to medical developments during the Civil War. Among these collections are the personal possessions of Dr. Benjamin Rohrer, a surgeon with the Tenth Pennsylvania Reserves. Dr. Rohrer's artifacts, donated by Dr. Gordon Dammann, include his leather surgeon's shoulder bag, a carte de visite, saddle bags, a spur, a Bowie knife, and a collection of twenty-seven letters and one map of Gettysburg showing the position of hospitals after the battle there. Rohrer's Civil War story begins in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he left in August 1861 to fight for a "righteous cause," as mentioned in a letter to his brother dated August 18, and ends in the furthest reaches of Florida four long years later. Dr. Rohrer's experience encompasses almost every phase of the medical system, ranging from time as a regimental surgeon to charge of a general hospital. He treated the wounded soldiers of the Tenth Pennsylvania Reserves at battles such as Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Gettysburg. Later he was transferred to Germantown, Pennsylvania, to operate the general hospital there. The final letter in the collection, dated May 9, 1865, reassigned Dr. Rohrer to Key West, Florida.