Question about Confederate hospitals

digne

Private
Joined
Jun 27, 2020
This is my ancestor, William F. Moore, 6th Alabama Cavalry. He was hospitalized in February 1864, and didn't return to his unit until that November. I have two questions:

1.) His "complaint" is written as "Feb Ty." What is that? My best guess is Typhoid or Typhus. And the "Feb" could be short for February. Does anyone have any more information?

2.) There are two hospital records for him. One noted him at a hospital in Jackson, Mississippi. And the other specifically says he was at Shelby Springs Alabama in July and August 1864. Was he transferred? Did the whole hospital move? All I have found so far is that the hospital at Shelby Springs was established by Confederates fleeing Vicksburg in 1863 (a year before this solider was hospitalized). Jackson and Vicksburg are super close. I know the Union soldiers burned Jackson during the Vicksburg campaign. I'm suspicious the hospital at Jackson was long gone before this soldier ever fell sick. Does anyone have any other information? Were they just still reusing the same records book from Jackson at Shelby Springs?

Source of images:
https://www.fold3.com/image/6876657
https://www.fold3.com/image/6876655

Screen Shot 2021-10-05 at 11.08.36 PM.png


Screen Shot 2021-10-05 at 11.08.02 PM.png
 
The admission date on both records is one day apart, if I'm reading it correctly, so I would think he was admitted only once. My guess is that they packed up all the patients and moved them. Also, the source noted at the bottom of each record is different, probably not from the same register book.

As for the timeline of the campaign and the hospitals, I cannot say.
 
Last edited:
"Feb ty" is most likely febrile typhus or typhus fever. It's spread by fleas and lice and the soldiers certainly had those aplenty.

I agree with @OldSarge79 that this is two records of one admission. You're right to doubt that he was actually in Jackson, MS in February of 1864, since it was under Union control then. The hospital did relocate to Shelby Springs in 1863 and, evidently and unsurprisingly, used the old forms and papers they had for record keeping. It seems your record is one of many that turn up with Jackson on them when the soldier was nowhere near there.
 
You are right, "Feb" has to mean febrile. Any reason it was more likely to mean Febrile Typhus and not Febrile Typhoid?

Looking at the timeline more closely. William Moore was in the 6th Alabama Cavalry. And according to their overview information, they never were in Mississippi at all. Of course, the overview may not tell the whole story. Maybe he was part of a detachment at some point that went to Mississippi. Although his service records do not denote anything like that.

The 6th Alabama Cavalry are listed as serving in Florida and then as the garrison at Montgomery, Alabama, around the time William fell ill.

Another possible reason he may have been transferred to Shelby Springs, is it is very close to Tallapoosa county, Alabama, where his family lived. Perhaps in his long convalescence, his family was able to visit him? And once he was doing a little better, he asked to be transferred so he could be closer to them? That is assuming he was ever in Mississippi at all.
 
Like you, I looked at the 6th Alabama and saw they were never in Mississippi. Usually soldiers were taken to the nearest hospital when they got sick but proximity to home may have influenced sending him to Shelby Springs. As to typhus, that was the abbreviation I saw most often as ty. But it could have been typhoid. Typhus is more common in the winter, typhoid in the summer. If he was admitted in February that may point more toward typhus.
 
It seems your record is one of many that turn up with Jackson on them when the soldier was nowhere near there.
@lupaglupa is correct, these forms were printed post war by the US war dept and used for many soldiers.
 
@lupaglupa is correct, these forms were printed post war by the US war dept and used for many soldiers.
I knew these forms were created after the war (and they often listed at the bottom of the cards where the information came from). Like you says, things could easily have been copied wrong.
 
The important part, to me, is that he was ill for the period specified and spent most if not all of that time in the hospital. But he did recover and serve again through the end of the War. Many people didn't recover so he was lucky!
 
Well, I have now confirmed that the 6th Alabama Cavalry was in Mississippi.

"In February 1864 ... The Sixth Cavalry, which was then at Meridian, MS, was ordered to join Clanton in Gadsden [Alabama]." (source)

23 February 1864 is the date William F. Moore was admitted to the hospital.

Which leads to another question. That's Nathan Bedford Forest's operation in Mississippi, right?
 
Meridian is not far over the Alabama border and it makes sense that if they were primarily stationed at Montgomery they would have made incursions over the border. I still don't think William was ever at the hospital in Jackson, MS though.
 
Meridian is not far over the Alabama border and it makes sense that if they were primarily stationed at Montgomery they would have made incursions over the border. I still don't think William was ever at the hospital in Jackson, MS though.
I think so too.
 
I did some looking online earlier in response to this thread and found that there are medical records all over the place. It does not seem like they have been indexed or centralized in any way. Many of the scope notes indicated that they have good info on staff but less on patients.
 
My adopted home town was the site of a large Confederate Hospital. It was very accessible to the main railway in the Shenandoah Valley. Any wounded that were very seriously wounded were often sent another 40 miles south to the hospital in Staunton. Maybe your ancestor needed additional treatment that was not available at the first stop. 🤔
 
Interesting thread. I see lots of hospital records in my research of the soldiers in my cemetery threads. It can be very difficult sometimes to reconcile hospital records themselves and with dates and locations in Company Muster Rolls and Regimental Returns. I always look for pension records too.
 
I did some looking online earlier in response to this thread and found that there are medical records all over the place. It does not seem like they have been indexed or centralized in any way. Many of the scope notes indicated that they have good info on staff but less on patients.
Yeah, I saw your thread about looking for medical records for your family.

I did find this about the Shelby Springs hospital:

"Records from the hospital are scarce and barely legible, but the surviving reports, housed on microfilm at the Shelby County Historical Society, indicate whether a deceased soldier's body would be interred at the cemetery." (source)

That could mean only death records are available for this hospital. But I've got it on my list now.
 
Many of the scope notes indicated that they have good info on staff but less on patients.
The records consolidated by Dr. Samuel Stout are the ones held in Texas. Microfilms of some of the records are available at Auburn University in Alabama, Emory in GA, and UNC. Dr. Stouts records are extensive but as I understand include only the Army of TN hospitals so mostly GA, AL, MS, and TN hospitals. They do include patient rosters that include complaint/illness so perhaps a trip to UT at Austin might turn up something definitive.
You're right to doubt that he was actually in Jackson, MS in February of 1864, since it was under Union control then. The hospital did relocate to Shelby Springs in 1863 and, evidently and unsurprisingly, used the old forms and papers they had for record keeping.
I too believe that these two forms are records of a single admission, and that one of them was recorded on the Jackson form by mistake.
 
Interesting thread. I see lots of hospital records in my research of the soldiers in my cemetery threads. It can be very difficult sometimes to reconcile hospital records themselves and with dates and locations in Company Muster Rolls and Regimental Returns. I always look for pension records too.
I found his pension records. They don't shed any light on the hospital question. Some of the papers are dated 1907 and others 1912.
It would be wonderful if the paperwork was cleared and dates and places lined up more neatly, but we take what we can get I guess.
 
It would be wonderful if the paperwork was cleared and dates and places lined up more neatly, but we take what we can get I guess.
Yep. As our esteemed colleague @Ole Miss once said in a thread: "Confederate records are a mess." :biggrin: We work with what we have.
 
Back
Top