Surgeon and Soldier for the Union
Stories Behind the Stones: Zabdiel Boylston Adams, MD
By Mitchell Adams
Surgeon and Soldier for the Union
My great-grandfather Zabdiel Boylston Adams followed the path of his forebears in attending Harvard College. Unlike his forbearers, however, he was expelled from Harvard for complicity in a prank and was subsequently“ rusticated” to Bowdoin. After graduating from Harvard Medical School in 1853, he traveled to Paris for post-graduate study in medicine. But certainly his most extraordinary life experience was his Civil War service.
Zabdiel felt an intense, even fanatic, commitment to the Union cause, and enlisted immediately after the firing on Fort Sumter. Serving all four years of war, he was wounded repeatedly but always managed to re-enlist. He would later describe his“ service in the Civil War in defense of the certainty and unity of the nation and the overthrow of a despotic and inhumane oligarchy” as the highlight of his life.
His fervent patriotism stemmed from his identity and his close kinship with some of America’ s founding fathers. His great-grandfather was John Adams’ s double first cousin, and Samuel Adams,“ the Firebrand of the Revolution,” was a first cousin several times removed. Zabdiel’ s opposition to slavery reflected his roots in abolitionist Boston. His sister Annie Adams Fields was Harriet Beecher Stowe’ s biographer and close friend. Annie’ s husband James Fields, a prominent Boston publisher and editor, was the first to publish Julia Ward Howe’ s“ Battle Hymn of the Republic” in 1862.
Upon his enlistment, Zabdiel became Assistant Surgeon in the 7th Massachusetts Volunteers Brigade. He served in some of costliest battles of the war, including Antietam and Gettysburg, where he set up his operating tables at the very edge of the“ Bloody Wheatfield.” Here he toiled non-stop for two days and three nights. At the end of this ordeal, he collapsed, blinded from stress and exhaustion. Among Gettysburg’ s 1,000 monuments, only one is dedicated to a physician: the plaque cites the wisdom and heroism of Dr. Zabdiel Boylston Adams for operating at the very edge of the battlefield, avoiding much loss of life.
Because his impaired eyesight compromised his surgical ability after Gettysburg, Zabdiel was commissioned as a
Zabdiel Boylston Adams( 1829-1902) © Harvard Medical Library in the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine
Zabdiel Boylston Adams, Surgeon, 32nd Regiment, Massachusetts; 56th Regiment, Massachusetts is buried in Lot 2700 on Elder Path at Mount Auburn Cemetery.
Captain in the infantry and fought in the Battle of the Wilderness. His company lost 20 of its 45 men to death or capture. He himself was badly wounded, captured, and imprisoned for months. Amid squalid prison conditions, he saved his own gangrenous leg by pouring pure nitric acid into the open wound.
His final combat experience occurred in the spring of 1865 in the 2nd Battle of Petersburg, where he was once again wounded. Shortly thereafter, in the second week of April, he witnessed Lee’ s surrender at the Appomattox Courthouse.
The succeeding chapters of his life were considerably less dramatic. In 1867, he co-founded the Roxbury Society for Medical Improvement, which meets regularly to this day. He moved to Framingham, Massachusetts, and practiced as a country doctor with long hours and little or no pay. He was an active leader in medical and civic affairs, helping to found the town’ s hospital and library, where his portrait hangs today. He championed vaccination and served on the Framingham Board of Health and as Medical Examiner. The Massachusetts Medical Society elected him Vice-President and in 1897 asked that he serve as“ Orator of the Annual Discourse.”
In a manuscript summarizing his life,
Zabdiel wrote,“ War is for beasts. There should never be another one on earth.”
Mitchell Adams is a former member of Harvard University’ s Board of Overseers and recently retired after 10 years as executive director of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, an independent public agency dedicated to the formation, retention, and expansion of technology-related enterprises in Massachusetts. He received both his bachelor’ s degree( 1966) and his M. B. A.( 1969) from Harvard.
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