“M” is for Moore, Samuel Preston (1813-1889)

“M” is for Moore, Samuel Preston (1813-1889). Surgeon general of the Confederacy. Born in Charleston, Moore graduated from the Medical College of South Carolina and was commissioned an assistant surgeon in the U.S. Army in 1835. In 1861 he resigned from the U.S. Army and sought a commission in the Confederate military. Upon being appointed acting surgeon general of the Confederacy, he faced the daunting task of creating Southern medical services from scratch. Moore was able eventually to field a medical corps of approximately three thousand officers. He oversaw each military hospital in the South through personal and military correspondence and established large general hospitals in Richmond and other cities. Samuel Preston Moore’s greatest accomplishment might have been the vaccination of the entire Southern army against smallpox in only six weeks, a controversial decision in 1862.