Maryland Doctor Serving in the Civil War

[Civil War]: [Maryland]: Simpers, Charles:

[Archive of War-Date Manuscript Letters Sent by Civil War Surgeon Dr. Charles T. Simpers, 6th Maryland Infantry Regiment, to His Wife Elisa, Reporting on His Medical Activities, Commenting on the "Accursed Rebels," and Providing Numerous Details on the Daily Life of a Civil War Soldier].

[Various locations in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, DC: 1862-1864]. Occasionally soiled, foxed, and toned. Minor closed tears along old folds. One letter separated along central horizontal fold. Overall very good. Item #12722

An extensive archive of approximately ninety letters, consisting of sixty-four letters from Dr. Charles T. Simpers (occasionally signed "Sempers") to his wife, Elisa, along with eighteen of her replies, and eleven letters from assorted friends and family. Dr. Charles T. Simpers (1821-1903) enlisted into service from North East, Maryland on August 21, 1862 as an Assistant Surgeon. He served with General Grant in the Wilderness campaign and was captured at the Second Battle of Winchester on June 13, 1863, while tending to the wounded. There is a gap in the present archive from June to December of 1863 while he spent six months in Libby Prison. After his release, he was promoted to Surgeon and served as an Executive Officer of the military hospital at Camp Parole before fighting in the Overland Campaign at the Battle of the Wilderness; he was discharged October 26, 1864.

Dr. Simpers' letters average in length from two to four pages and begin a few days after his enlistment. The first is dated August 25, 1862, with the bulk of Simpers' letters ending on July 31, 1864, though a handful of letters from family continue past that point until July 1865. His letters offer a glimpse into the daily life of a Civil War hospital, camp life, and military news. While Maryland stayed loyal to the Union, there were many Confederate sympathizers within the state. Though staunch Unionists themselves, Charles and Elisa write extensively to each other about the sympathetic feeling to the Confederacy amongst other citizens of the state, offering a unique glimpse into life within a border state at a time of war.

A few weeks after enlisting, Simpers writes to Elisa about the damage to crops and bridges throughout the countryside created by the retreating Confederates. On September 21, he writes: "the residents of this section of Maryland hailed our arrival with unmistakable evidence of joy, as they do the arrival of all the federal troops, they do not desire a second visit from such deliverers as Jeff, but amongst them they found that instead of being delivered from Lincoln's tyranny they were delivered of their property." He was placed in charge of a hospital after another surgeon was injured in October of 1862; he wrote to Elisa to complain that "I much prefer living in camp and sharing the fortunes of my regiment than to be pent up in a noisome hospital." Despite his preference, he excelled during his time at the "Brigade Hospital" in Williamsport. On November 8, he writes that the Sanitation Commission informed him he had the best-regulated brigade hospital they had examined so far and that the patients, "ask to come to the hospital, they say they know I will attend to them, but them other fellers they think don't care wheather [sic] they get well or not, and they try to get under my care," but despite his diligence, "Typhoid Fever is the dominant disease in hospital &...there is a sprinkling of everything else, from the mumps down, we have not had any small pox yet, and I trust may not have...."

By the following February, Simpers was back with the regiment at Harper's Ferry, however, the trials of the first six months of service had begun to wear on him. On February 1, he writes to Elisa that, "this soldering business tests the material of which men are made. Some improve under it while others become broken down." By March 25, his patience with the enemy had worn thin, and he writes a harshly open letter to his wife, venting his frustrations: "...If I have betrayed the feelings I entertain for Rebbels...no reasonable minded person would wonder at it if they could come to this part of accursed rebeldom and see as I have the true character of those engaged in the Rebellion...were I in command of the federal armies I would burn every town and house where Rebels are.... I would execute or transport or expatriate or consign to close confinement in prisons...all not avowedly loyal, I would totally exterminate them both in person and property, not only in this country, but in the north, and any one that enters your house and talks treason or speaks favourably of the Rebbel cause, tell them your husband is in the service of the Federal Government, endeavoring to aid in sustaining the only Republican Government on earth...."

On May 29, 1863, while in Berryville, Virginia, Simpers witnesses the devastation in the countryside and ruminates on the cost of such widespread loss: "I write you more in detail of the country through which I have passed, and the condition of the suffering inhabitants of Old Virginia. Virginia has paid dearly for her error, and will require years of patient toil to restore her to her former prosperous condition, but what is the loss of property in comparison to the slaughter of her sons...what is the slaughter of her sons in armed rebellion, compared to the sacrifices of the lives of patriots upon her soil, battling for the preservation of the best Government on the Earth? It is dust in the balance - of no value whatever. I feel as if this blessed Government of ours must be preserved at every cost, - if need be, to the last dollar and the last man." On June 13, General Lee attacked the brigade at Berryville, capturing Simpers at the Second Battle of Winchester while he tended to the wounded. He was sentenced to six months in Libby Prison, and the archive picks back up in December of 1863 upon his release and promotion to Surgeon. While in prison, their infant son, Harry, passed away in the northeast, and Simpers's health took a significant downturn. He was placed at Camp Parole to serve at a military hospital while he recovered.

Simpers recovered enough to be present for the Wilderness Campaign in the Spring of 1864. He writes to Elisa describing the losses they'd sustained at the Battle of the Wilderness on May 10: "Having an opportunity to send you word by mail of my safety and preservation through the perilous days that have passed recently.... I have been...constantly employed, with little time for sleep & none for rest. I came on to this place with a large number of wounded, & arrived here yesterday and have established hospitals, & have the worst cases under shelter.... Our dear old flag is pressing on gloriously, the enemy feels the valorous arms that now are dealing to them blows heavy and which must subdue them.... Maj. J.C. Hill of our Regt is wounded though not seriously a flesh wound of the thigh. Capt Martin & Lieut Myers of the 6th Md are killed & all the officers of our Regt except the Col. One Capt and three Lieuts are wounded, our Regimental loss is heavy, it opened the fight, was in the front for three days during the fighting & then took its turn. After three days fighting our regt surrendered about one hundred and fifty men...."

Just days before the Battle of Cold Harbor, Simpers wrote to his wife that they were a handful of miles from Richmond: "I am again with the Hospital of the 3rd Division of the 6th Corps, which I enjoined on Tuesday night last. Our position at present is on the south side of the Pamunkey River & near Hanover Court House, (we are about from 12 to 15 miles from Richmond,) and expect in a few days to be knocking at its gates for admission...." He does not write again until his final letter in the archive on July 15, when the regiment was near Baltimore in order to aid in repulsing General Early from Washington. He writes to Elisa that he intends to resign as soon as possible and was summarily discharged on October 26, 1864. After the war, he returned home to Cecil County, Maryland where he practiced medicine until his death in 1903.

An example of his wife's responses reads as follows, from her letter on "New Year's Night," 1864: "I have been very busy all day preparing eatibles to send tomorrow to you in a box & have just got through at this late hour. Asbery is sick and have no one to assist me but got along very well. The cakes I send you I think will keep and carry better than crullars & hope they will please your taste. The fruit cake I fear is baked too much.... Our cow does much better. I send you some butter. Would send more but used part of the churning in your cakes & butter is not to be obtained here often."

The present collection of Dr. Simpers' war-date letters, as well as the smaller collection of his wife's homefront responses, provide a detailed picture of Civil War medical and military life over the course of the conflict's first two years, with ample opportunities for deeper research.

Price: $8,500