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W.R. Ramsey
(1833 - 1900)
Home State: Pennsylvania
Education: University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Branch of Service: Medical
Before Antietam
He was a delegate to the Pennsylvania Medical Society convention in Westchester in 1857, but by 1860 was a physician living on the Samuel Hudson farm in Bloomington, McLean County, IL. He was commissioned Assistant Surgeon, US Army on 5 August 1861. He was at the Union Hotel Hospital in Georgetown, D.C. then assigned to the 11th United States Infantry.
On the Campaign
He was with his regiment on the Maryland Campaign and treated wounded soldiers near the Middle Bridge during the Battle of Antietam on 17 September 1862:
Approaching the bridge I [Surgeon A. A. Woodhull] found a small house on the south side of the road, that had been abandoned, and that I used for a dressing station — one could hardly call it a hospital — and there cared for the wounded who drifted back, until it was dark and after ... Assistant Surgeon William R. Ramsey, who was attached to the Eleventh, came there also and we worked in company. This was done by both of us on our own initiative.
The rest of the War
He treated the wounded after Gettysburg in July and August 1863 at the Seminary Hospital there. He was honored by brevets to Captain and Major, USA on 13 March 1865 for faithful and meritorious service during the war.
After the War
He continued in US Army service and resigned on 9 June 1868. In 1880 he was living with his mother, 2 sisters, and their children in Norriton, PA - listed as single and "at home," apparently not practicing medicine. He was still in Norriton (Norristown) at the 1890 US Veterans' Census.
References & notes
His service from Heitman.1 The quote above from Duncan.2 Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1860 & 1880, and the Proceedings of the Pennsylvania State Medical Society (1857). His gravesite is on Findagrave. His picture from a photograph at the Seminary Ridge Museum and Education Center in Gettysburg, posted to Facebook.
He married Lucie C.M. Stevens (1838-1904) in April 1866 in Washington, DC, and they had a child who died soon after birth (1867) and daughter Gertrude Clare (1871-1904).
Birth
1833 in PA
Death
1900; burial in Montgomery Cemetery, West Norriton Township, Montgomery County, PA
1 Heitman, Francis Bernard, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army 1789-1903, 2 volumes, Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1903, Vol. 1, p. 814 [AotW citation 31374]
2 Duncan, Louis C., and Captain, Medical Corps, US Army, The Medical Department of the United States Army in the Civil War: unpublished collection, c. 1916, Bloodiest Day in History ..., p. 29 [AotW citation 31375]