Cahaba Prison and Sultana Incident

[gr8mochas]

I am new here but my research directed me to a few posts that indicated medical records could be found from hospitals that the Sultana passengers were admitted to after the boat blew up. I am researching the medical history of my GGG Grandfather, Robert C Turner. He was in the 3rd TN Cavalry, Company G and was a POW in Cahaba Prison. He was on the Sultana when it blew up and he survived, but I have found information that said he was in Washington Hospital in Memphis TN. Is there any way I can find medical records for him. It seems like he died from dysentery, but here are also statements that said he had injuries from the Sultana. Is there any way to find these records?

 

[Gary Morgan]

I am new here but my research directed me to a few posts that indicated medical records could be found from hospitals that the Sultana passengers were admitted to after the boat blew up. I am researching the medical history of my GGG Grandfather, Robert C Turner. He was in the 3rd TN Cavalry, Company G and was a POW in Cahaba Prison. He was on the Sultana when it blew up and he survived, but I have found information that said he was in Washington Hospital in Memphis TN. Is there any way I can find medical records for him. It seems like he died from dysentery, but here are also statements that said he had injuries from the Sultana. Is there any way to find these records?

I'm not an expert on this, but I'd recommend contacting Bob Velke from Gopher records and asking him if he can retrieve your ancestor's medical records from the National Archives. If they're not there, he won't charge you. I used him to retrieve the medical records of Charles Curtis, 5th Rhode Island Heavy artillery to help prove that Curtis was NOT the man hanged as one of the raiders at Andersonville. It's a long story, but Curtis was in the hospital when his company was captured, and therefore was never actually AT Andersonville. Another man assumed Curtis's name as an alias at Andersonville to cover his tracks when he stole from the other prisoners. The hospital records explained the statement in his compiled service record that said that he deserted FIVE MONTHS after he was supposedly executed as a raider.

So yeah, medical records do exist, and I'd contact Bob to see if you can get hold of it.

 

[13 IL Cav & 64 GA Inf]

I'm not an expert on this, but I'd recommend contacting Bob Velke from Gopher records and asking him if he can retrieve your ancestor's medical records from the National Archives. If they're not there, he won't charge you. I used him to retrieve the medical records of Charles Curtis, 5th Rhode Island Heavy artillery to help prove that Curtis was NOT the man hanged as one of the raiders at Andersonville. It's a long story, but Curtis was in the hospital when his company was captured, and therefore was never actually AT Andersonville. Another man assumed Curtis's name as an alias at Andersonville to cover his tracks when he stole from the other prisoners. The hospital records explained the statement in his compiled service record that said that he deserted FIVE MONTHS after he was supposedly executed as a raider.

So yeah, medical records do exist, and I'd contact Bob to see if you can get hold of it.

Good advice.

 

[Bob Velke]

I'm not an expert on this, but I'd recommend contacting Bob Velke from Gopher records and asking him if he can retrieve your ancestor's medical records from the National Archives. If they're not there, he won't charge you.

That is true of most record types because they are indexed and sorted - so I'll know in advanced if and where I'll find the relevant records.

But Carded Medical Records are not indexed and they are sorted only by the first letter of the surname. So I need to manually search that collection for a specific soldier. As a result, Carded Medical Records are one of the few exceptions to the general rule in that I do have to charge you for the search even if I don't find anything for your soldier.

Having said that, I'm at NARA today and I had a brief downtime while waiting for other records so I searched for Carded Medical Records for Robert Turner. I found just two:

They probably don't say as much as you'd like - but there it is.