Converted to EAD3 : Encoded Archival Description (EAD), Version 3 : Release: 1.1.1 : Release Date: 2019-12-16. Validating against latest version of schema.
Contact information: https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mss.contact
Catalog Record: https://lccn.loc.gov/mm82060269
Collection material in English
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the LC Catalog. They are grouped by name of person or organization, by subject or location, and by occupation and listed alphabetically.
The papers of Frank Hastings Hamilton, physician, surgeon, educator, and author, were given to the Library of Congress by George A. Kaplan in 1981.
The papers of Frank Hastings Hamilton were arranged and described in 1985. The collection was expanded and revised in 2010. The finding aid was updated in 2023 by Maria Farmer as part of a division-wide remediation project by the Inclusive Description Working Group.
A larger collection of Hamilton’s medical papers is located at the National Library of Medicine, Bethesda, Md.
The status of copyright in the unpublished writings of Frank Hastings Hamilton is governed by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U.S.C.).
The papers of Frank Hastings Hamilton are open to research. Researchers are advised to contact the Manuscript Reading Room prior to visiting. Many collections are stored off-site and advance notice is needed to retrieve these items for research use.
Researchers wishing to cite this collection should include the following information: Container number, Frank Hastings Hamilton Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
The papers of Frank Hastings Hamilton (1813-1886) span the years 1863-1882 and consist of correspondence, telegrams, memoranda, a memorial resolution, military documents, clippings, photographs, and scrapbooks focusing on Hamilton’s medical career in the Union Army during the Civil War and as a consultant to the physician attending to President James A. Garfield before his death from assassination in 1881.
Prominent in the collection is a scrapbook entitled “History of President Garfield’s Gun Shot Wound Compiled from July 2nd to September 3rd 1881,” collated for Hamilton and dedicated to him on September 5, 1881, by an associate, Faneuil D. Weisse. Included in the volume is the telegram sent from Secretary of State James Gillespie Blaine, at the request of Garfield's wife, Lucretia Rudolph Garfield, asking Hamilton to come to Washington to assist with the president’s treatment. Other items documenting Garfield’s condition and care include a graph of his temperature and pulse, July 2 to August 2, 1881, plus memoranda and annotated newspaper clippings on his assassination.
Prominent as well is a scrapbook of items from Hamilton’s Civil War service and his postwar work as a surgeon and professor of medicine. Included are photographs of the doctors of his medical staff in the Union Army, 1864-1864, as well as military documentation relating to Colonel Theodore B. Hamilton of the Sixty-second New York Infantry. Among the memorabilia are Confederate army passes and currency, and personal notes and illustrations described as having been taken from a Confederate soldier and a Confederate guerilla. A photograph separate from the album depicts medical directors of the Army of the Cumberland taken in front of General Philip Henry Sheridan’s tent at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, in 1863.
In a scrapbook reflecting Hamilton’s post-Civil War life is an 1877 letter from Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894).
This collection is arranged by type of material or topic