Civil War Confederate General, Medical Pioneer. He was the Surgeon General of the Confederate States Army. Raised in Charleston, South Carolina, he was educated in the local schools and received his M.D. degree from The Medical College of South Carolina in 1835. After a brief time in Arkansas he joined the United States Army where he had a long and distinguished career that included service in the Mexican War, along the way establishing a reputation a an excellent physician and as a "by-the-book" administrator. Following the secession of South Carolina, Dr. Moore resigned from the Army to seek a position in the Confederacy. On July 31, 1861, he was appointed the second, and last, Surgeon General of the Confederate States Army. (The first, Dr. David de Leon, also of South Carolina, had his brief tenure ended by alcohol problems). During the remainder of the war Surgeon General Moore oversaw the vast Confederate military medical establishment under increasingly difficult conditions with ever decreasing resourses. He improved the ambulance corps and the barracks hospital design, and also ran a system of continuing education in which the Medical Departmment partnered with the Medical College of Virginia. (Confederate physicians were forced to become pioneers of what we today call "alternative medicine", utilizing herbal remedies). One of his most enduring accomplishments was the Matron Law of 1862 which allowed non-physicians, and women at that, administrative control of military hospitals; this act paved the way for the pioneering work of many, such as Phoebe Yates Levy Pember, and anticipated the United States military by over a century. Previously, it had been considered improper for a lady to go inside a hospital, much less run one. Many of the women employed as Matrons were free blacks, with even a few slaves, a high position for a black at that time. Unfortunately, the Surgeon General's office burned in the evacuation fire of April 2nd and 3rd., 1865, destroying most of the medical department official records. After the war, Dr. Moore remained in Richmond, where he established a medical practice, and also served on the school board for six years.
Civil War Confederate General, Medical Pioneer. He was the Surgeon General of the Confederate States Army. Raised in Charleston, South Carolina, he was educated in the local schools and received his M.D. degree from The Medical College of South Carolina in 1835. After a brief time in Arkansas he joined the United States Army where he had a long and distinguished career that included service in the Mexican War, along the way establishing a reputation a an excellent physician and as a "by-the-book" administrator. Following the secession of South Carolina, Dr. Moore resigned from the Army to seek a position in the Confederacy. On July 31, 1861, he was appointed the second, and last, Surgeon General of the Confederate States Army. (The first, Dr. David de Leon, also of South Carolina, had his brief tenure ended by alcohol problems). During the remainder of the war Surgeon General Moore oversaw the vast Confederate military medical establishment under increasingly difficult conditions with ever decreasing resourses. He improved the ambulance corps and the barracks hospital design, and also ran a system of continuing education in which the Medical Departmment partnered with the Medical College of Virginia. (Confederate physicians were forced to become pioneers of what we today call "alternative medicine", utilizing herbal remedies). One of his most enduring accomplishments was the Matron Law of 1862 which allowed non-physicians, and women at that, administrative control of military hospitals; this act paved the way for the pioneering work of many, such as Phoebe Yates Levy Pember, and anticipated the United States military by over a century. Previously, it had been considered improper for a lady to go inside a hospital, much less run one. Many of the women employed as Matrons were free blacks, with even a few slaves, a high position for a black at that time. Unfortunately, the Surgeon General's office burned in the evacuation fire of April 2nd and 3rd., 1865, destroying most of the medical department official records. After the war, Dr. Moore remained in Richmond, where he established a medical practice, and also served on the school board for six years.
Bio by: Bob Hufford
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