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J.J.H. Love

J.J.H. Love

Federal (USV)

Surgeon

John James Hervey Love

(1833 - 1897)

Home State: New Jersey

Education: Lafayette College ('51), Medical School of New York City ('54)

Command Billet: Regimental Surgeon

Branch of Service: Medical

Unit: 13th New Jersey Infantry

Before Antietam

He practiced medicine in West Bloomfield from 1855 to 1862, and also served as superintendent of the public school and of the town of Bloomfield Township. He was commissioned Surgeon of the 13th New Jersey Infantry on 19 July 1862 and mustered into service with them on 25 August.

On the Campaign

He later wrote:

I am heartily sick of this life. I came out knowing just what it was, but a deep sense of duty to my country impelled me to go. I would return to-morrow if it were not for the same feeling of duty. On the day and after the battle of Antietam I had very, very hard work. I stood at the amputating table for four consecutive days and looked at night more than a butcher from the slaughter house than anything else.

The rest of the War

He served as Chief Surgeon of the Brigade and then of his Division. He resigned his commission on 23 January 1864.

After the War

He returned to his medical practice and civic involvement in West Bloomfield. He was President of the Essex County Medical Society (1872).

References & notes

Biographical detail from a finding aid to his medical papers (1862-64) at the New Jersey Historical Society. The picture here from a photograph in the MOLLUS Massachusetts Collection1. Biographical details from Atkinson.2 His gravesite is on Findagrave.

More on the Web

See a mystery photo feature by Kurt Luther in Military Images (Spring 2018) for another view of Surgeon Love, source also of the quote above, from an unknown letter.

Birth

04/03/1833; Harmony Township, Warren County, NJ

Death

07/30/1897; in NJ; burial in Rosedale Cemetery, Orange, NJ

Notes

1   US Army, Heritage and Education Center (USAHEC), Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States (MOLLUS)-Massachusetts Photograph Collection, Published 2009, <https://arena.usahec.org/web/arena>, Source page: pg. 5543  [AotW citation 7877]

2   Atkinson, William Biddle (editor), A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary American Physicians and Surgeons (2nd Ed.), Philadelphia: D.B. Brinton, 1880, pp. 329-330  [AotW citation 17088]