Samuel P. Moore

Samuel Preston Moore (September 16, 1813 – May 31, 1889) was an American military physician, who served in the medical corps of the United States Army during the Mexican–American War, and later as the Confederate Surgeon General throughout nearly all of the American Civil War.

Biography

Early life and career Samuel P. Moore was born in 1813 in Charleston, South Carolina. He was a son of Stephen West Moore, a prominent banker in Charleston (originally from Virginia), and his wife, Eleanore Screvan Gilbert. His brother, Stephen M. Westmore, also served in the Confederacy. Moore was educated in the local public schools of Charleston, and then attended South Carolina Medical College with the intention of becoming a physician. He graduated in 1834 and relocated to Little Rock, Arkansas, to start his medical practice.

On March 14, 1835, Moore entered the U.S. Army and was appointed as an assistant surgeon. In this capacity he serviced in the American frontier, including regions of Missouri, Kansas, Florida, as well as along the Texas border with Mexico.

Moore also served as a surgeon during the Mexican–American War, which lasted from 1846 to 1848. He befriended Col. Jefferson Davis, the future Confederate President, who was greatly impressed with Moore's abilities. Following the war with Mexico, Moore served in several U.S. Army postings, including a short stint at the United States Military Academy at West Point as a surgeon. By 1863 Moore's headquarters were the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia. He also would set up a Reserve Surgical Corps. This single level pavilion-style hospital was ordered built throughout the South. He improved the field ambulance corps and supplemented the few available medicines with drugs made from the South's indigenous plants, which were produced in laboratories set up by Moore. By the end of the war in 1865, the Medical Department of the Confederacy had about three thousand men under Moore. He died in Richmond in May 1889 and was buried in the city's Hollywood Cemetery. Another summary also praises Moore's results, stating:

With skill and dedication, Dr. Moore transformed the medical corps into one of the most effective departments of the Confederate military and was responsible for saving thousands of lives on the battlefield. The Confederate Congress's Act of February 27, 1861, stipulated that the post would be a staff officer only. Moore is also listed as an "unsubstantiated" brigadier general of the South Carolina militia, appointed in 1865. Subsequent legislation to make the surgeon general a brigadier was proposed but never became law.