Recollections of a Civil War Medical Cadet by Burt Green Wilder (review)

Richard M. Reid's edited volume of the memories of Union medical cadet Burt Green Wilder is slim, but it is packed with useful insights and anecdotes for historians of Civil War medicine. Prefaced by a cogent state-of-the-field introduction and excellent contextualization, the memoir is presented much as its author left it, full of notes to self, appendixes, and bits and bobs from comrades' letters and diaries. While these qualities could mean a confusing collection, the result is actually an even more useful book for researchers. For example, a fascinating excerpt from one of Wilder's former comrades is included verbatim. Wilder clearly disagreed with his comrade's depiction of their working conditions and the war, and he annotated that excerpt to say so. The reader gets both perspectives in one place, a unique way for a historian to explore how two men might remember the same experience differently.

Medical cadets are not particularly well understood, but Wilder's memoir helps shed some light on their unique position within the Union army's medical structure. Wilder was bright, ambitious, and eager to learn, and he quickly began doing research work for John Hill Brinton, a senior officer in the Army Medical Department and future director of the United States Army Medical Museum. Wilder collected specimens for the museum, even describing his interactions with the father of a soldier whose brain was taken for the collection. Yet Wilder was not so desperate to advance; when he was offered a smaller salary than he had been promised for a position in the United States Army Medical Museum, Wilder quit.

The recollections capture the experiences of a hardworking and inquisitive young man enthralled by the medical challenge that the war presented. It appears that the image on the book's cover is not Burt Wilder but another medical cadet named James Rundlett May. Reid's editorial work helps contextualize and clarify the unfinished original memoir. If I could ask for anything more, it would be to have a slightly shorter historiographical introduction and more of a biographical sketch of the very intriguing Burt Wilder. This volume will be of great use to Civil War medical historians hoping to reconstruct life in Union hospitals or the nature of medical support work.