John James Hervey Love

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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