Past and Present Honors
On April 4, 1863, Alexander T. Augusta became the first African American commissioned medical officer in the U.S. Army. His appointment as a full surgeon afforded him the rank of major with a salary of $2,230 a year. During his time as a military surgeon, he served as surgeon-in-charge of Contraband Hospital in Washington, D.C. and Freedmen’s Hospital in Savannah, Georgia. His leadership was an example of patriotism, pride, determination, perseverance and service.
As the first Black military surgeon, he was met with blatant discrimination within the Army and from fellow white surgeons and officers. He faced both verbal and physical attacks throughout his service but persevered, forging a path for other Black physicians and surgeons. Despite the discrimination and violent attacks he faced, his friend and fellow Black surgeon, Anderson R. Abbott, observed Augusta’s determination, describing him as having, “a bulldog tenacity of temperament which cannot be deterred by fear.”
Augusta served the Union Army with dignity and honor and was brevetted a lieutenant colonel in 1867 for his faithful and meritorious service. It would take another 156 years, for Augusta to be recognized as a pioneer in Civil War medicine when the United States Army hospital, Ft. Belvoir Community Hospital was renamed the Alexander T. Augusta Military Medical Center on May 16, 2023.
In April of 2023, Augusta received the honor of being posthumously admitted as a veteran member of MOLLUS (Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States), the first and oldest Civil War Fraternal Organization in the United States. This year, another honor was bestowed upon Augusta when the Virginia Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States created a challenge coin honoring his service as a Civil War veteran and a native of Virginia.
Augusta is one of only a handful of Black Civil War surgeons recognized and honored for their contributions to the nation. In New Haven, Connecticut, a high school was named after Yale University’s first Black medical school graduate and Civil War surgeon, Cortlandt Van Rensselaer Creed and in 2019 at the University of Michigan, a professorship at the medical school was named after Black Civil War surgeon and medical school student Alpheus W. Tucker.
Dr. Theodore Iwashyna, the first Alpheus W. Tucker, M.D. Collegiate Professor of Internal Medicine, explained the importance of naming a professorship after Tucker. He said that it recognizes “the University’s history of racism and the faculty’s complicitness” in that racism. “Naming a professorship in his honor seemed, to me, to be a way to apologize” for that wrong and “commit to doing better in the future. It is meant to remind us that our institution (as all institutions) is imperfect, and that constant efforts to live up to our democratic ideals are necessary. Progress does not happen by some invisible force. It happens when people make the effort to fight for justice.”
Read more about these Black Civil War surgeons in Without Concealment, Without Compromise: The Courageous Lives of Black Civil War Surgeons.
© Jill L. Newmark 2024
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