This collection contains two diaries dating from 1864-1865 which belonged to Artemus Chapel, who was a surgeon for the Union Army during the American Civil War. He served first as a surgeon in the 1st Division, 12th Corps of the Army of the Potomac, and then was promoted to Medical Director for the 3rd Army Corps and was placed as Chief Surgeon at the West’s Building Hospital in Baltimore. The diaries describe the medical treatment and management of Union soldiers and Confederate prisoners-of-war. Topics include the distribution of rations to these respective groups and the physical and mental health of prisoners held by both the Union and Confederacy. Chapel also describes personal meetings with Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, President Lincoln, and nurse Dorothea Dix; the public response in Baltimore to the Fall of Richmond and the assassination of President Lincoln; and attending Lincoln’s open-casket funeral in Baltimore.

The 1864 diary begins on January 1st while he was in Virginia working at a military camp as part of the Army of the Potomac. In March 1864, he was ordered to relieve Thomas Bache, who was in charge of the General Hospital, West’s Building in Baltimore, Maryland. He began work at West’s Building Hospital on April 9th. On May 25th, 1865, he was assigned to the hospital at Camp Bradford, just outside of Baltimore, and left West’s Hospital on May 31st. He was appointed Lt. Colonel shortly before being mustered out on October 1st, 1865.