John G. Perry

In 1862, facing a shortage of doctors, the federal government called for volunteer surgeons to serve in military hospitals behind the lines in order to allow commissioned army surgeons to remain at the battlefronts. John Perry, a student at the Boston Medical School, answered the government's call. Perry hoped that his wartime experience would allow him to take his final examinations sooner—a feat which would also allow him to marry his fiancee, Martha Derby.

Perry was assigned to the Army of the Potomac under General Ulysses S. Grant in the spring of 1864. Grant's forces were force-marched through eastern Virginia, and Perry witnessed some of the worst fighting of the entire war at the battles of The Wilderness, Spotsylvania Courthouse, Cold Harbor, and Petersburg. His letters home to the future Martha Derby Perry reveal a...