Asst Surg Alexander Ingram

16 February 2019

Dartmouth Class of 1858, Assistant Surgeon Alexander Ingram was commissioned in the US Army on 28 May 1861, initially looked after troopers of Pleasonton’s Cavalry Battalion and some of the First US Dragoons in Washington, DC, then, on the Peninsula Campaign, took charge of a hospital at Carter’s Landing.

He was assistant to the Medical Director, Army of the Potomac in Maryland in September 1862, and afterward reported

My experience during these engagements having been more that of a dragoon, either in the saddle or standing to horse, than of a medical officer, can be of no value.

He was in charge of hospitals in the field and in Washington, DC to August 1864 and was then ordered West. He was lost at sea on 30 July 1865 in the wreck of the steamer Brother Jonathan enroute to Headquarters, Department of the Columbia (Oregon, Washington and Idaho).

His photograph is from the National Library of Medicine; a copy print is online in their Images from the History of Medicine collection, as is a Tribute to his memory (1867).

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