Thomas Murray Getty: U.S. Army Surgeon and Medical Pioneer (1824–1867)

Thomas Murray Getty, United States Army officer and surgeon, son of John Alexander Getty, an Irish schoolteacher, and Jane (Hampton) Getty, was born in Maryland in 1824. Getty attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied under Dr. William Harris and wrote an essay in 1848 on Colica Pictonum (lead poisoning). At this time his home residence was listed as Hampton, Virginia. He graduated with the degree of doctor of medicine on April 8, 1848. Getty remained on staff at the University of Pennsylvania and was reviewed by the medical board of the U.S. Army on November 15, 1849. He was appointed assistant surgeon from Virginia on November 23, 1849.

New Assistant Surgeon Getty had his first duty station in the U.S. Army at Fort Monroe, Virginia, on December 5, 1849. In early 1850 he was transferred to Texas, where he served at Fort Inge from February 27, 1850, to August 28, 1854; he was the longest serving individual garrisoned at Fort Inge. Getty was the second surgeon on site and relieved Assistant Surgeon John Campbell. During Getty’s tenure at Fort Inge, the post physician oversaw the building of the cut limestone hospital, which was the most substantial building west of San Antonio and later served the fort as a storehouse. Getty was present at Fort Inge when, on August 4, 1853, Col. W. G. Freeman made his official visit as inspector general to Fort Inge. In his report Freeman noted that the post’s medical department was under the supervision of Assistant Surgeon T. M. Getty, and that the hospital was in good order, well-organized, and stocked with quality stores. Freeman reported a total of 189 cases of sickness treated at the hospital at Fort Inge during the previous year, and that number included the following “principal diseases”: eighty-five cases of intermittent fever, twenty-two cases of scurvy, and nine cases of diarrhea. While Getty was stationed at Fort Inge, he was known as a well-respected man of the region and friend of Reading Black, who founded the town of Encina (later Uvalde). Black named the principal north-south avenue of his newly-founded town as “Getty Street.”

Getty left Fort Inge in August 1854 and traveled to Baltimore, following the death of his father the previous month. On November 23, 1854, Getty returned to temporary duty at Fort McHenry, Maryland, and on December 9, 1854, was transferred to Fort McHenry, following a three-month leave. In 1855 Getty was transferred and joined the garrisons at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; Jefferson Barracks, Missouri; Station Camp of the North Fork of Platte, Nebraska Territory; and Fort Laramie, Nebraska Territory, where he served from August 1855 through February 1858. In February 1858 Getty joined the army in Utah and from July 1859 to April 1860 served at Camp Floyd, Utah Territory, where he was attached to Seventh U.S. Infantry. Later that year the 1860 census listed him as surgeon at Albuquerque, New Mexico Territory, and he had $6,000 in real estate and $400 in personal property. By July 1860 Getty was stationed at the camp near Rio del Norte, Colorado, under Lt. Col. Edward R. S. Canby, and by November 1860 Getty was assistant surgeon attached to a battalion of the Third United States Infantry under Lt. Col. William Chapman on a military campaign through Texas to San Antonio.

During the Civil War Getty was promoted from assistant surgeon to surgeon on April 16, 1862. In 1864 he served as medical director of the Department of the Northwest. On November 15, 1864, Getty was made Medical Director of Prisoners of War under the Office of Commissary General of Prisoners, commanded by Brig. Gen. Henry Walton Wessells. In this position Surgeon Getty inspected U. S. military prisons, including the famed Civil War prison at Elmira, New York. Toward the end of the war, Getty was brevetted lieutenant colonel for faithful and meritorious wartime service on March 13, 1865.

After the war, Getty was sent to the Reconstruction South in March 1866 to serve as medical director of the Department of Alabama. Finally, he returned to Baltimore on July 18, 1867, when he relieved Acting Assistant Surgeon William H. H. Michler as post surgeon at Fort McHenry, Maryland. Surgeon Thomas Murray Getty died on October 30, 1867, in the hospital at Fort McHenry from inflammation of the stomach. Getty was buried on November 1, 1867, at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland.