A Healing History of North and South
Penny Johnston introduces the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, Maryland.
A yellow flag emblazoned with an H flies high over the new National Museum of Civil War Medicine in the historic block of downtown Frederick, Maryland. Frederick, founded English and German settlers in 1745 was named after Frederick Calvert, 6th Lord of Baltimore.
During the American Civil War, Frederick was witness to no less than three Confederate invasions, thirty-eight skirmishes and two major battles (South Mountain and Monocacy).
The new National Museum of Civil War Medicine, is housed in a former furniture store in a building which dates back to the 1830s on what was the National Road, now Patrick Street.
After the Battle of Antietam, which occurred less than fifteen miles away on September 17th, IMP, the bloodiest day of the Civil War, 8,000 wounded were brought back to Frederick, doubling the town's population. Twenty-nine buildings - churches, with planks placed on top of pews for beds, schools and hotels - were set up as make-shift hospitals. The building which now houses the museum, was used as an embalming station.
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