Lafayette Guild: Surgeon and Medical Director of the Army of Northern Virginia (1825–1870)

Lafayette Guild, surgeon, United States Army officer, medical researcher, and medical director of the Army of Northern Virginia, son of Dr. James Guild and Mary Elizabeth (Williams) Guild, was born at Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on November 23, 1825. He attended the University of Alabama, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1845 and a master’s degree in 1848. With his father’s influence, Guild was trained and graduated with a doctor of medicine degree at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1848. In August 1848 he went into practice with his father in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

Guild was appointed an assistant surgeon in the United States Army on March 2, 1849, and reported for duty in New Orleans, Louisiana. In fall 1849 he was transferred to Fort Chokonikla on Pias Creek in Florida and served there from October 1849 to May 1850. Early in 1851 Guild was sent to Texas and served as assistant surgeon at Fort Lincoln from March 17, 1851, through July 1852. While stationed at Fort Lincoln, he scouted with Company G, Second U.S. Dragoons, on the Indian frontier from April 20, 1851, to July 6, 1851, and served as post commander starting on November 30, 1851. Guild was transferred to Fort Mason, Texas, on August 18, 1852. He was granted a leave of absence from the post between November 1, 1852, and March 19, 1853. During this time Guild married Martha “Pattie” Aylette Fitts, daughter of Judge John Fitts and Virginia W. Aylett, in Mobile, Alabama, on December 15, 1852. In spring 1853 Guild was ordered to proceed to New Orleans Barracks; he left the post on May 12, 1853, only to soon return to Fort Mason.

On August 15, 1853, Fort Mason was inspected under Lt. Col. William G. Freeman, who reported that the hospital department under Guild was in excellent condition and extremely healthy. Freeman described the hospital at Fort Mason as being a two-room log building consisting of a ward and dispensary. In the next year, Guild joined the newly-founded garrison at Fort Davis, Texas, where he was stationed from September 1854 to January 1855. The hospital there consisted of a tent and a small wooden shed.

After serving in Texas, Guild was sent east. While stationed as post surgeon at Governor’s Island, New York, in 1856, he observed the appearance of yellow fever at New York harbor and how it spread from quarantine stations and military posts to civilian settlements ashore. Guild concluded that the disease must be airborne and travel by the wind. He later revisited his observations of yellow fever after the war. Guild was sent to San Francisco, and on August 9, 1857, he was transferred to Fort Humbolt, California. Fort Humbolt was Guild’s duty station for the rest of the decade. During this time, Lafayette and Pattie Guild adopted two young American Indian sons. Ultimately Guild left Fort Humbolt on May 9, 1861. He was finally dropped from the military rolls on July 1, 1861. Guild had returned to Alabama and offered his service to the Confederate States Army.

Lafayette Guild was commissioned a surgeon and, upon joining the Confederate Army in July 1861, was appointed inspector of hospitals. In March 1862 Guild as hospital inspector reported that sick Black workmen were housed in a separate building at Chimborazo, the largest hospital in the Confederacy. On June 27, 1862, he was appointed the medical director for the Army of Northern Virginia, Confederate States Army, and served on the staff of Gen. Robert E. Lee. As medical director, Guild paid special attention to supplies and provisions for all soldiers, whether healthy or sick, in the Army of Northern Virginia. He was critical of the granting of furloughs, shortage of quinine and ambulances, quality of medical instruments supplied by medical purveyor of Surgeon E. W. Johns, and the quality and quantity of army rations. In total, during his service in the Confederate Army, Guild improved field surgery, battlefield care, and the sanitation of camps and hospitals.

In early June 1863, in preparation of the Gettysburg campaign, Guild established receiving hospitals along the rail lines on the invasion route from Culpeper, Virginia, to Gordonsville, Virginia. On the march northward, Surgeon Guild gave special attention to the cure of scurvy that had greatly affected the Second Corps under Gen. Richard S. Ewell. During the Gettysburg campaign, Guild reported that Confederate casualties numbered about 20,500, with more than 15,000 soldiers killed or wounded. In the retreat to Virginia, he personally supervised the movement of the sick and wounded by way of wagons and ambulances. Early in 1865 Guild proposed a rotational system for all military surgeons to obtain experiences in the field as well as hospital conditions. He continued as medical director until the surrender of Robert E. Lee at Appomattox on April 9, 1865.

Following the war, Lafayette Guild operated a private medical practice in Mobile, Alabama, from 1866 to 1869. During this time, he was made the quarantine inspector for the port of Mobile; in this position Guild was responsible for keeping out yellow fever from the coastal city. Much of his knowledge of yellow fever came from his time in the service outside of New York City almost a decade earlier. In 1869 Guild moved to San Francisco, where he served as visiting surgeon at San Francisco City and County Hospital. He served in this position until his death of “rheumatism of the heart” on July 4, 1870, in Marysville, California. Lafayette Guild was buried in Evergreen Cemetery, at Tuscaloosa, Alabama.