Object Record
Images
Metadata
Object |
Drawing |
Title |
Quarters of Surgeon B.W. Carpenter |
Artist/Creator |
Ripley, Edward Hastings |
Date |
1864 |
Description |
Drawing of small basic room including walls, floor, and roofline. Room includes a window beside bed with blue cover, table with assorted objects and two wood chairs. Inscription below drawing "Quarters of Surgeon B.W. Carpenter/9th Vt. Vols/ Very popularly known as "the Little Doctor"/The best Army surgeon I ever met./EHR"; black and colored ink on brown paper. Dated bottom left "Newport NC/May 30, 1864" |
Width (inches) |
8.000 |
Height (inches) |
10.000 |
Subjects |
United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865. |
Information |
Prior to enlisting in the army Edward Hastings Ripley studied medicine at Union College. It comes as no surprise then, that Ripley formed a bond with Dr. Benjamin Walter Carpenter, a surgeon assigned to the 9th Regiment Vermont Infantry Volunteers. This drawing of Dr. Carpenter’s quarters at Newport, North Carolina, executed by Ripley during the summer of 1864, depicts a tidy, well-maintained space. The 9th Vermont saw very little action that summer, so most of Carpenter’s patients were suffering from disease, such as measles or smallpox, rather than horrific battle wounds. In fact, for the entirety of the war the Union army suffered more than twice as many casualties to disease than battle inflicted wounds, approximately 250,000 to 110,00. |
Related People |
Ripley, Edward Hastings Carpenter, Benjamin Walter |
Credit line |
Gift of Mrs. A. R. Pumpelly |
Catalog Number |
A1390 |