Phineas Sanborn Conner papers

The papers of Phineas Sanborn Conner contain scrapbooks with letters, commissions and other documents. Many of the papers date from the Civil War period and include Conner's presidential appointment as assistant surgeon, U.S. Army. The appointment is signed by Abraham Lincoln, with a counter signature by Edwin M. Stanton, secretary of war. Conner's commission as brevet captain in the U.S. Army, on parchment and signed by President Andrew Johnson, is also included. Other documents, particularly letters and circulars issued by order of the surgeon general, pertain to Conner's responsibilities at Columbian Hospital, Washington, D.C.; University Hospital in New Orleans (Union Department of the Gulf), and in Raleigh, N.C., where he served as medical director in the Department of North Carolina. Some of these items reflect Surgeon General William A. Hammond and Surgeon General Joseph K. Barnes' efforts to collect data and specimens from surgeons in the field. Of note are orders concerning the preservation of surgical and medical specimens for the Army Medical Museum. A circular from Hammond also directed medical officers to report on medical conditions in the field and troop morale.

To a lesser extent, the scrapbook reflects Conner's membership on the Commission to Investigate the Conduct of the War Department in the War with Spain. Members of the commission included Grenville M. Dodge, James A. Sexton, Charles Denby, Evan P. Howell, John M. Wilson, James A. Beaver, Alexander McCook, Richard Weightman, Francis B. Jones, Urban A. Woodbury, and Stephen C. Mills. An autograph copy of the report made by the commission is sewn into the binding. Other items relating to the commission include a telegraph from William McKinley, ephemera, a photograph of the commission, and portrait photographs of Grenville Dodge, John M. Wilson, and Francis B. Jones. Dodge's work, Transcontinental railways, is sewn in.

Synopsis of 54 lectures delivered by Prof. Conner at the Medical College, Ohio, as well as a catalogue of his library are also included.