National Museum of Civil War Medicine - National Museum of Civil War Medicine

NMCWM Open Thursday - Sunday

The Museum is open for walk-ins Thursday - Sunday, and by appointment only Monday - Wednesday.

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Weekend Walking Tours

Join Museum Docents for walking tours of Downtown Frederick every Saturday and Sunday April-October at 2:00.

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Pub History at Abolitionist Ale Works

Join Museum staff at Abolitionist Ale Works in Charles Town, WV for a night of trivia and great beer.

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Death and Destruction Walking Tour

Learn about the most deadly and destructive aspects of Frederick's Civil War experience on this walking tour.

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Divided by Conflict.

Three sites, thousands of stories.

National Museum of Civil War Medicine

Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum

Pry House Field Hospital Museum

Upcoming Programs

Frederick City Charles Johnson- Civil War Medicine Museum

One Vast Hospital – Civil War Walking Tour in Downtown Frederick

September 18 @ 2:00 pm

National Museum of Civil War Medicine

Walk in the footsteps of doctors, nurses, and civilians who cared for 8,000 wounded soldiers in Downtown Frederick with Museum docent Brad Stone

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Frederick City Charles Johnson- Civil War Medicine Museum

One Vast Hospital – Civil War Walking Tour in Downtown Frederick

September 19 @ 2:00 pm

National Museum of Civil War Medicine

Walk in the footsteps of doctors, nurses, and civilians who cared for 8,000 wounded soldiers in Downtown Frederick with Museum docent Brad Stone

Learn More

Pub History at Abolitionist Ale Works

September 23 @ 7:00 pm

Abolitionist Ale Works

Join the National Museum of Civil War Medicine at Abolitionist Ale Works in Charles Town, WV for an evening of history, trivia, and beer.

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Discover History Firsthand

Take a closer look at artifacts that reveal how history was made.

From Our Blog

“When Will it End”: A Civil War Surgeon and His First Experiences with War at Antietam

September 14, 2021

Read about Surgeon William Child’s first experience of war at the Battle of Antietam – the bloodiest day in American history.

Two soldiers pose with a whiskey bottle. Courtesy of the Library of Congress

“Half the Time Unfit for Duty”: Alcoholism in the Civil War

September 2, 2021

Alcohol is often associated with war, but just how pervasive was its use during the American Civil War? Read this article to find out.

civilwarmed

A scene at the battle-ravaged Dunker Church on the

A scene at the battle-ravaged Dunker Church on the Antietam battlefield on September 18, 1862. After the blood-letting at the Battle of Antietam, US and Confederate forces met under a flag of truce to collect the wounded and the dead from the shattered landscape.

These short-term ceasefires often took place during the Civil War under the humanitarian auspices of assisting and collecting the severely wounded soldiers trapped between opposing lines.

(Illustration: "Flag of truce to look after the wounded," A.R. Waud. Library of Congress)

"Farmhouses, barns, outhouses, all were tenanted,

"Farmhouses, barns, outhouses, all were tenanted, and still the stretcher-bearers brought in from the front a constantly fresh addition. I had no time today to visit the hospital, but, as I rode past the barn, a collection of amputated limbs lying outside the door attested the hurried and wholesale character of the work going on within.

At any other time, such a sight would have shocked me, but today it came in naturally as part of the scene."

- George Noyes, describing the scene before him as he left the Pry House as the Battle of Antietam raged on September 17, 1862.

(Photograph: The Pry House in September 1862 - National Park Service)

Instagram post 17983604122398069

Instagram post 17983604122398069

Gunshots caused a vast majority of wounds received

Gunshots caused a vast majority of wounds received on a Civil War battlefield, and the idea of being shot terrified the soldiers who fought them.

They thought about it, talked about it, wrote about it, and ultimately hoped it would not happen to them. But for many, their luck would eventually run out. Sgt. Henry Tisdale of the 35th Massachusetts describes the feeling of being shot during the Battle of South Mountain on September 14, 1862:

"Just after we entered the wood was wounded by a rifle ball passing through my left leg just opposite the thighbone. As the ball struck me it gave me a shock which led me to feel at first that the bone must have been struck and shattered and for a moment did not dare to move for fear it was so.

Found on moving that the bone was not injured and that I had only a flesh wound, which relieved my mind and thankfulness to God that I was not maimed or dangerously hurt came.

I think that the shot must have been fired by some straggling rebel or sharpshooter in a tree, as we had not yet got up to within reach of the rebel lines.

Found myself in a few moments growing weak and tying my towel above the wound to stop its bleeding tried to make for the rear where the surgeons were..."

These surgeons belong to the 2nd Division, 3rd Cor

These surgeons belong to the 2nd Division, 3rd Corps of the US Army.

The photograph was taken in the late summer or early fall of 1863 near Culpeper, Virginia.

(Photograph: Library of Congress)

“It was the greatest coffee run in American hist

“It was the greatest coffee run in American history.

The Ohio boys had been fighting since morning, trapped in the raging battle of Antietam, in September 1862. Suddenly, a 19-year-old William McKinley appeared, under heavy fire, hauling vats of hot coffee.

The men held out tin cups, gulped the brew and started firing again. ‘It was like putting a new regiment in the fight,’ their officer recalled. Three decades later, McKinley ran for president in part on this singular act of caffeinated heroism.

At the time, no one found McKinley’s act all that strange. For Union soldiers, and the lucky Confederates who could scrounge some, coffee fueled the war.

Soldiers drank it before marches, after marches, on patrol, during combat. In their diaries, ‘coffee’ appears more frequently than the words ‘rifle,’ ‘cannon” or ’bullet.’

Ragged veterans and tired nurses agreed with one diarist: ‘Nobody can soldier without coffee.’”

Read the full article from the New York Times Disunion Blog: https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/07/09/how-coffee-fueled-the-civil-war/

(Sketch: Coffee Coolers by Edwin Forbes - Library of Congress)