Transcribed by Crist Middaugh
--------
Doctor’s Civil War diary published
Special to the Reporter
Local history buffs will welcome the publication this week of the Civil War diary of Dr. William M. Smith, a prominent Allegany County politician and, later, Surgeon General of the State of New York. His family, friends, and political associates in Olean, Angelica, Castile, Pike, Belmont, Friendship, Short Tract and Hornell, all play a part in this confidential diary.
He tended the wounded during the Battle of Fair Oaks, Va., and did the same in North Carolina, at New Bern, Kingston, Goldsboro, and Washington. His adventures with scheming and immoral officers are a counter-point to the bravery of other Allegany-area associates.
His military, political and spiritual adventures appear in Swamp Doctor - The Diary of a Union Surgeon in the Virginia and North Carolina Marshes, published by Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, Pa.