His Sword a Scalpel: General Charles Stuart Tripler MD, USA
Charles Stuart Tripler built a sterling reputation in the antebellum US Army. Veteran of the Seminole and Mexican-American wars, chief medical officer on the typhoid-ravaged voyage commanded by U.S. Grant, Tripler studied and lectured on advances in military medicine and wrote a standard US Army guidebook.
Appointed Medical Director of the Army of the Potomac after First Bull Run, Tripler confronted the daunting task of building a medical infrastructure for America’s largest army.
His leadership enabled the near-capture of the Confederate capital during the Peninsula Campaign. Instead of advancement, fame, and recognition, lobbying by the US Sanitary Commission torpedoed his promotion. He remained loyal, in uniform, launching a medical installation for veterans — regardless of race — that continues today as a university research and learning facility.
Only a tragic death at age sixty put an end to his Army career. Recent scholarship has begun correcting the trope that the Civil War was a medical disaster rife with inexperienced surgeons hacking off limbs. Instead, many practitioners were unsung heroes in a conflict overwhelming in its scope and effect on health and welfare. Tripler is an exemplar, and this freshly researched volume illuminates how health issues can become embroiled in politics, as replicated during the Covid-19 pandemic.
All proceeds from the sale of this book goes toward the Michigan Monument at Antietam project.
Available: His Sword a Scalpel: General Charles Stuart Tripler MD, USA
Praise for His Sword a Scalpel
“This work is a very thorough and cogently argued treatment. It offers a very persuasive defense of Tripler’s reputation, which has been unjustly maligned. Tripler had to adapt to an entirely new structure and scale of warfare.”
— Dr. Martin J. Hershock. Historical author; Dean and Professor of History at University of Michigan-Dearborn
“Beautifully written and fact lled. A great job of historical writing.”
— Dr. John L. Cameron, Distinguished Professor of Surgery, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
“Author Jack Dempsey has done history, Michigan, and all of us an enormous favor by telling for the first time the story of Dr. Charles Stuart Tripler, a career military officer and physician who did more than anyone to advance battlefield medicine at the beginning of the Civil War. His insights and reforms undoubtedly saved countless lives, then and later, before politics ousted him from his post. His Sword a Scalpel is compelling, and is best read in combination with Heart In Tatters: Eunice Hunt Tripler and the Civil War, the story of the heroic physician's wife, who survived her husband by nearly half a century.”
—Jack Lessenberry. Award-winning journalist, editor, columnist, author, and former president of the Historical Society of Michigan
“General Charles Stuart Tripler was the first Medical Director of the Army of the Potomac. It was he who envisioned and built the medical infrastructure for the Union army near the beginning of the Civil War - a model that has served as a template for all subsequent iterations of the medical departments of the United States Army. Unlike so many other Civil War generals, Tripler did not have the opportunity to burnish his own reputation through post-bellum memoirs. He died in 1866, just months after the end of the conflict. In an unfair twist of history, Tripler's legacy was almost completely eclipsed by that of his successor, Major Jonathan Letterman - but no longer. Jack Dempsey's thoroughly-researched and well-documented His Sword a Scalpel does a masterful job of restoring the reputation of this humble, compassionate and extremely capable servant of the medical profession. Health care workers may be especially drawn to items in the Appendix, including the Mexico Report and features on the Tripler ambulance wagon and his Crimean oven. It would be well for every modern-day physician and surgeon to emulate the life and service of this noble American doctor.”
—Dennis A. Rasbach graduated from Johns Hopkins University Medical School, has more than three decades of experience in general surgery, and is an author of Civil War titles Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the Petersburg Campaign and I Am Perhaps Dying
Reviews of His Sword a Scalpel
5.0 out of 5 stars – Revisiting Historical Records
It is fascinating that a person's life can seem ordinary during their time and even shortly after they pass. But years later, we discover their life was anything but ordinary. This book revisits the life of Charles Stuart Tripler and his role in modernizing military medicine as we know it today. When reading this book and the book about his wife, Eunice, it is interesting to see how the military role of one spouse impacts the entire family.
The Civil War can be an intimidating subject, and this narrow focus allows for much easier learning. This is a great read!
5.0 out of 5 stars – Fantastic book; it reestablishes Tripler's status and contributions to the US Medical Service
You couldn't ask for a better follow-up to Mr. Dempsey's previous volume on another Tripler, "Heart in Tatters," which was about Gen. Tripler's wife, Eunice. Dempsey has pulled out all the stops in "His Sword A Scalpel." No document is ignored as he treads through the labyrinth of misinformation displayed in many earlier treatments of Tripler. I'm eager to reread this book. The level of detail and commitment to finding the truth deserves several passes -- at least.
