RARE "Army Surgeon" General Alfred Conrad Girard Hand Signed Check COA For Sale

The Civil War`s chief legacy to the Medical Department was an increase in the traditional peacetime burdens of the Surgeon General`s Office. In the years that followed the surrender at Appomattox, the office would be asked to create both a medical museum and a medical history, using specimens and case histories gathered during the conflict; in response to a congressional mandate, to provide Civil War veterans with prostheses and the information needed for pension applications; and, for a brief period, to manage the medical care of freed slaves. As a result, for decades after the end of the conflict, the Army`s surgeon generals dealt with war-related challenges while carrying out the department`s historic mission of guarding the Army`s health.1All seven of the officers who headed the Medical Department from 1865 to 1893 were Civil War veterans. Six of them had also served in the prewar Army and thus were familiar with many of the difficulties their subordinates would face after the war. With their roots firmly embedded in a period when germs were not recognized as the cause of disease and infection, all were to varying degrees unsure of the significance of the medical revolution then beginning to gather force across the Atlantic. They left the task of leading their organization to a prominent position in the era of modern medicine to the man who would become surgeon general in 1893.2The first postwar surgeon general, Brig. Gen. Joseph K. Barnes, came to office in August 1864.3A man of diplomacy and determination, Barnes was known for his good judgment, hard work, and insight into the problems and personalities he encountered. Assigned to Washington in May 1862, he had quickly formed a strong friendship with Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Until his resignation from office in May 1868 as part of the power struggle that led to President Andrew Johnson`s impeachment, Stanton supported Barnes in all his undertakings, even when they involved activating projects he had previously disapproved. After holding office for almost eighteen years, Barnes was the first surgeon general to whom a new law mandating retirement at sixty-four applied. Already in poor health when he left the department in June 1882, he died a year later.4Death or mandatory retirement because of age curtailed the time in office of the next six men to serve as surgeon general. Barnes` immediate successor, Brig. Gen. Charles H. Crane, was head of the department for only fifteen months. An obvious choice, the 57-year-old Crane had worked