John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life

In response to this call, some who were whole and needed not a physician, as well as those who were sick, reported at the surgeon's tent for prescriptions. Much used to be said by the soldiers in regard to the competency or incompetency of army surgeons. It was well understood in war time that, even though an examination of fitness was required of surgeons to secure an appointment in the army,--at least in some States,--many charlatans, by some means, received commissions. Such an examination had as much value as those the medicine men made of recruits in ‘64 and ‘65, for those who have occasion to remember will agree that a sufficient number of men too old or diseased came to the front in those years---no, they did not all get as far as the front — to fairly stock all the hospitals in the country. A part of this showing must be charged to incompetent physicians, and a part to the strait the government was in for recruits. The appointment of incompetent surgeons, on the other hand, is to be condoned in a government sorely pressed for medical assistance, and all too indifferent, in its strait, to the qualifications of candidates.

Nothing in this line of remark is to be construed as reflecting on the great mass of army surgeons, who were most assiduous workers, and whose record makes a most creditable chapter in the history of the Rebellion. There are incompetents in every class.

Every soldier who tried to do his duty, and only responded to sick-call when in the direst need, should have received the most skilful treatment to be had; but a strict regard for the facts compels the statement that a large number of those who waited upon the doctor deserved no better treatment than the most ignorant of these men of medicine were likely to administer. Yes, there were a few individuals to be found, I believe, in every company in the service, who, to escape guard or fatigue duty, would feign illness, and, if possible, delude the surgeon into believing them proper subjects for his tenderest care. Too often they succeeded,