Jonathan Letterman Jonathan Letterman ( December 11 , 1824 – March 15 , 1872 ) was an American surgeon credited as being the originator of the modern methods for medical organization in armies . Dr . Letterman is known today as the " Father of Battlefield Medicine . " His system enabled thousands of wounded men to be recovered and treated during the American Civil War . Early life . Letterman was born in Canonsburg , Pennsylvania , the son of a well - known surgeon . He graduated from Jefferson College in 1845 and Jefferson Medical College in 1849 . That same year he was given the position of assistant surgeon in the Army Medical Department . Letterman served in Florida during military campaigns against the Seminole Indians until 1853 . He then spent a year in Fort Ripley , Minnesota . He was then ordered to Fort Defiance in New Mexico Territory to aid the campaign against the Apache . He was transferred to Fort Monroe in Virginia . From 1860 to 1861 he was engaged in California against the Utes . His younger brother , William Henry Letterman , co - founded the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity with Charles Page Thomas Moore in Canonsburg after tending to sick classmates in the Fall of 1850 . After graduation from Jefferson College , William followed his brother into Jefferson Medical College . Civil War . At the start of the Civil War , Letterman was assigned to the Army of the Potomac . He was named medical director of the Department of West Virginia in May 1862 . A month later William A . Hammond , Surgeon General of the U . S . Army appointed him , with the rank of major , as the medical director of the Army of the Potomac itself . Letterman immediately set to reorganizing the Medical Service of the fledgling army , having obtained from army commander Maj . Gen . George B . McClellan the charter to do whatever was necessary to improve the system . The army reeled from inefficient treatment of casualties in the Seven Days Battles in June , but by the time of the Battle of Antietam in September , Letterman had devised a system of forward first aid station s at the regimental level , where principles of triage were first instituted . He established mobile field hospital s to be located at division and corps headquarters . This was all connected by an efficient ambulance corps , established by Letterman in August 1862 , under the control of medical staff instead of the Quartermaster Department . Letterman also arranged an efficient system for the distribution of medical supplies . Letterman proved the efficiency of his system at the Battle of Fredericksburg , in which the Army of the Potomac suffered 12 , 000 casualties . After this show of proficiency , his system was adopted by other Union armies and was eventually officially established as the medical procedure for the entirety of the United States ' armies by an Act of Congress in March 1864 . The greatest casualties for his army were suffered at the three - day Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863 . To deal with more than 14 , 000 Union wounded , along with 6 , 800 Confederate wounded who were left behind , a vast medical encampment was created northeast of Gettysburg off the York Pike on the George Wolf farm , named " Camp Letterman . " After a brief period of serving as Inspector of Hospitals in the Department of the Susquehanna , Letterman resigned from the army in December 1864 and relocated to San Francisco , California , where he served as elected coroner from 1867 to 1872 . He published his memoirs , " Medical Recollections of the Army of the Potomac " , in 1866 . Death and legacy . After the death of his wife , Mary Digges Lee Letterman , he became severely depressed . He then came down with several illnesses and eventually died in San Francisco . He was only 47 years old . On November 13 , 1911 , the Army hospital at the Presidio was named Letterman Army Hospital in his honor . He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery . The inscription on the private memorial that was erected for him reads : His wife was buried at his side . Her inscription reads : " Blessed are the dead that died in the Lord . "