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A.C. Ford
(1832 - 1883)
Home State: Georgia
Branch of Service: Infantry
Unit: 20th Georgia Infantry
Before Sharpsburg
Son of an English Army surgeon, he was educated in London, England, then studied dentistry in New York in 1857. On 18 June 1861, then a dentist practicing in Louisville, GA, he mustered as 4th Corporal, Company C, 20th Georgia Infantry. He was appointed Sergeant Major of the regiment on 1 September 1861 and was elected and commissioned Junior 2nd Lieutenant of Company C, on 26 March 1862 at the Army reorganization. He was promoted to (senior) 2nd Lieutenant on 26 April and to First Lieutenant on 30 August 1862.
On the Campaign
He was wounded in the right side in action at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.
The rest of the War
He was in a Staunton, VA hospital by 27 September and by February 18 was in Augusta, GA, where his surgeon noted he had "paralysis of the right side involving the upper as well as the lower extremities from a wound received at the Battle of Sharpsburg." He resigned his commission due to disability on 3 March 1863.
After the War
He was a prominent dentist in Atlanta. In July 1872 he took on the young Doc (John Henry) Holliday (1851-1887), who had graduated from dental school in March.
I hereby inform my patients that I leave to attend the session of the Southern Dental Association in Richmond, Virginia, this evening and will be absent until about the middle of August, during which time Dr. Jno. H. Holliday will fill my place in my office.Holliday was diagnosed with tuberculosis and left Atlanta later that year. Ford was active in the Georgia State Dental Society (President 1874) and national organizations. He "suffered for five years" and died of phthisis pulmonalis - tuberculosis - in 1883; the same thing that eventually killed Doc Holliday.
Arthur C Ford DDS
Office: 26 Whitehall Street
References & notes
His service from the Roster 1 and his Compiled Service Records,2 online from fold3. His memorial is on Findagrave. The Doc Holliday story and other details about Ford from Karen Holliday Tanner's Doc Holliday: A Family Portrait (1998), including that quoted notice in the Atlanta Constitution of 26 July 1872.
He married English-born Emily Hawks (1833-1906) and they had at least 5 children together.
More on the Web
See a nice post-war painted portrait of Ford from Robert Wayne Elliott's collection hosted online (scroll to the bottom) by John Banks. Death and other details from a bio sketch found on the back of that painting. Some of Ford's papers are at the Atlanta History Center [finding aid].
Birth
10/11/1832; Cape of Good Hope, SOUTH AFRICA
Death
12/20/1883; Palatka, FL; burial in Oakland Cemetery, Atlanta, GA
1 Henderson, Lilian, compiler, Roster of the Confederate Soldiers of Georgia, 1861-1865, 6 vols., Hapeville (GA): Longino & Porter, 1959-1964, Vol. 2, pg. 785 [AotW citation 21889]
2 US War Department, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers, Record Group No. 109 (War Department Collection of Confederate Records), Washington DC: US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), 1903-1927 [AotW citation 31303]
