Surgeon with a Sense of Humor

lelliott19

Brigadier General
Moderator
* OFFICIAL *
CWT PRESENTER
Forum Host
Silver Patron
Regtl. Staff Chickamauga 2018
Joined
Mar 15, 2013
Letter from Surgeon Benjamin F Stevenson, 22nd Kentucky Infantry near Cumberland Gap, Kentucky with enclosure:

Pogues Post Office, Knox County, Kentucky
June 21, 1862

Dear Wife,
I am here twenty miles north of the Gap....I give you a copy of a will made by a rebel surgeon and found by Sumner in one of the abandoned tents of the enemy on the evening of the 18th.....Love to all with kisses for the children.
Yours truly.
B F Stevenson


For a Yankee Surgeon
My Last Will and Testament

Whereas, in the fortunes of war it may soon be necessary for me to bid adieu to the climate, scenery, and crystal fountains of Cumberland Gap: Therefore, to the first Yankee Surgeon who plants his foot on the threshold of my deserted quarters I will, devise and bequeath:

Item Ist. All my interests and rights to said premises, together with all and singular the tenaments, hereditaments, and appurtenances, therunto belonging.

Item IId. I furthermore desire and direct that the said Yankee Surgeon shall have free and unmolested control and use of all old clothes, bottles, blankets, and medicines, left on the aforesaid premises.

Item IIId. Knowing that the above mentioned Yankee Surgeon has for some time past subsisted on half rations, badly prepared, I further desire and direct that he may have unrestrained control and be sole proprietor of a small cooking stove a few paces hence on the hill side, where the testator has often eaten and enjoyed well cooked biscuit, beef, bacon, mutton, tarts, &c., regretting, however, that the usages of war will not permit me to leave him a supply of these articles.

Item IVth. I hereby revoke all previous testaments. In witness whereof, I hereunto set my hand and affix my seal.

R. B. Gardner [Robert Beall Gardner, later Surgeon Maj 37th Georgia Infantry]
Asst. Surgeon 3d Georgia Battalion
[Witnessed by] W. J. Carmichael and Henry J. Burton

https://archive.org/stream/lettersfromarmy00stev_0#page/88/mode/2up - page 88
 
Interesting. As early as 1862! What was the reason for his pessimistic prediction?

I pretty sure the rebel surgeon was being sarcastic. ...in the fortunes of war it may soon be necessary for me to bid adieu to the climate, scenery, and crystal fountains of Cumberland Gap...

I bet he would have been a hoot!! Hopefully Dr Stevenson was the benefactor or Gardner's kindness, and enjoyed the blankets, the stove, and Dr. Gardner's dry humor. :bounce:

I am unable to locate a link for Dr. Benjamin F. Stevenson, but here's the Find-A- Grave link for Dr Robert Beall Gardner (sense of humor guy)- unfortunately, no picture :nah disagree:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=44581840

DR. ROBERT BEALL GARDNER, oldest son of Sterling Gardner and Priscilla Neal (Beall) Gardner, was born in Warren County, Ga., July 8, 1829; married July 27, 1854, to Susannah Brown Gorham, daughter of Willis Gorham and Mary (Anderson) Gorham, of Harris County, Ga., who was born August 8, 1833. They settled in Barnesville, Pike County, Ga., where he had an extensive medical practice. After the close of the war in 1865, he removed with his family to Giles County, Tenn., where he engaged in farming, and was prevailed on to accept the principalship of the high school in Pulaski, which position he filled for several years. He was delegate to the Convention that elected Jefferson Davis, President of the Southern Confederacy. Served as surgeon in the army. He left the school in Pulaski, retired to his farm, where he died October 9, 1882. His wife died April 10, 1906.
(I bet he was a FUN principal)
There were born to them ten children:
1. Walter Gorham Gardner, born October 29, 1855.
2. Sarah Neal Gardner, born November 14, 1856.
3. Mary Emily Gardner, born August 27, 1858.
4. Fannie Beall Gardner, born March 27, 1860.
5. Dr. Robert Lee Gardner, born April 2, 1862.
6. Rev. George McDowell Gardner, born April 20, 1865.
7. Willis Sterling Gardner, born July 8, 1867; died November 22, 1904; unmarried.
8. Clifford Anderson Gardner, born July 9, 1869.
9. Susan Eloise Gardner, born March 19, 1871.
10. John Smith Gardner, born December 17, 1872; unmarried.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb...nderson/docs/andersongjbk/andersonbkgja6.html
 
Last edited:
I am unable to locate a link for Dr. Benjamin F. Stevenson.
I don't think there is a listing for him on FindaGrave. I have a copy of his obit. He lost his wife shortly after the war and eventually moved to Norwood, outside of Cincinnati. At one point he served as the Surgeon General of the Grand Army of the Republic and was constantly being confused with the founder, Benjamin Franklin Stephenson. `

He wrote a number of articles for the National Tribune as well.
 
That's hysterical. We tend to hear so much on how droopy and dreary Victorians were, you just know they couldn't have been comprehensively. If ever proof was needed, it's all right here.
Right!?!?!?! Dont you love this story?

Can imagine that Sumners got a chuckle out of it when he discovered the paper and I bet Dr Stevenson LOL 'd over it. :rofl::rofl::rofl: Being a surgeon himself, he had probably felt the same way - just never wrote in down so "eloquently."

".....in the fortunes of war it may soon be necessary for me to bid adieu to the climate, scenery, and crystal fountains of Cumberland Gap..." :bounce::rofl::bounce::rofl:
 
Last edited:
Letter from Surgeon Benjamin F Stevenson, 22nd Kentucky Infantry near Cumberland Gap, Kentucky with enclosure:

Pogues Post Office, Knox County, Kentucky
June 21, 1862

Dear Wife,
I am here twenty miles north of the Gap....I give you a copy of a will made by a rebel surgeon and found by Sumner in one of the abandoned tents of the enemy on the evening of the 18th.....Love to all with kisses for the children.
Yours truly.
B F Stevenson


For a Yankee Surgeon
My Last Will and Testament

Whereas, in the fortunes of war it may soon be necessary for me to bid adieu to the climate, scenery, and crystal fountains of Cumberland Gap: Therefore, to the first Yankee Surgeon who plants his foot on the threshold of my deserted quarters I will, devise and bequeath:

Item Ist. All my interests and rights to said premises, together with all and singular the tenaments, hereditaments, and appurtenances, therunto belonging.

Item IId. I furthermore desire and direct that the said Yankee Surgeon shall have free and unmolested control and use of all old clothes, bottles, blankets, and medicines, left on the aforesaid premises.

Item IIId. Knowing that the above mentioned Yankee Surgeon has for some time past subsisted on half rations, badly prepared, I further desire and direct that he may have unrestrained control and be sole proprietor of a small cooking stove a few paces hence on the hill side, where the testator has often eaten and enjoyed well cooked biscuit, beef, bacon, mutton, tarts, &c., regretting, however, that the usages of war will not permit me to leave him a supply of these articles.

Item IVth. I hereby revoke all previous testaments. In witness whereof, I hereunto set my hand and affix my seal.

R. B. Gardner [Robert Beall Gardner, later Surgeon Maj 37th Georgia Infantry]
Asst. Surgeon 3d Georgia Battalion
[Witnessed by] W. J. Carmichael and Henry J. Burton

https://archive.org/stream/lettersfromarmy00stev_0#page/88/mode/2up - page 88
Love it!
 
From "The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion," 1870, Page 86.
https://archive.org/stream/medicalsurgical21barnrich#page/86/mode/2up/search/stevenson

Screen Shot 2017-01-20 at 1.30.22 PM.png

What he said.
 
Back
Top