William H . Forwood William Henry Forwood ( September 7 , 1838 – May 12 , 1915 ) was a surgeon from Brandywine Hundred , Delaware , who served in the Union Army during the American Civil War and eventually as Surgeon General of the United States Army from June 8 , 1902 until September 7 , 1902 . Biography . During the war . Forwood attended Crozier Academy in Chester , Pennsylvania , earned his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania , and was appointed as an Assistant Surgeon on August 5 , 1861 . He was assigned to Seminary Hospital in Georgetown , Washington , D . C . , where he served initially as the hospital ’ s executive officer , then as regimental surgeon of the 14th U . S . Infantry , and then acting medical director of General Sykes ’ division , V Corps , Army of the Potomac during the Peninsula campaign . He took part in the battles of Yorktown , Williamsburg , Gaines Mill and Malvern Hill before he was reassigned to the office of the Medical Director , Washington , D . C . in October 1862 . In February 1863 , Forwood was assigned to the 6th U . S . Cavalry as an assistant surgeon . On May 13 , 1863 , Forwood was accompanying acting regimental commander George Henry Cram and two enlisted orderlies from General Buford ’ s headquarters back to their camp when they were captured by a band of Mosby ’ s guerillas . The group ’ s leader , Lieutenant Fairchild , after securing their horses and equipment , offered to release them if they would give their parole . Cram and the two soldiers did so and were released . Since medical officers on both sides had the right to be released without parole if captured , Forwood refused . Fairchild refused to release him without it , and turned him over to a guard detail as a prisoner of war . Forwood escaped into the brush while being marched away and returned to the regiment later that evening . This was quite an embarrassing incident for Captain Cram , and might be the reason Forwood spent the rest of the month on detached service at the Cavalry Corps ’ dismount camp near Dumfries , Virginia . He returned to the regiment before the battle of Brandy Station . During the Gettysburg campaign , Forwood was captured again . He was left in charge of the regiment ’ s wounded following the battle of Fairfield , among whose numbers was the other assistant surgeon , William H . Notson . This time he was released without incident , however , and rejoined his regiment for the remainder of the campaign . On October 11 , 1863 , the 6th U . S . Cavalry was caught in an exposed position near Brandy Station and engaged by superior numbers of Confederate cavalry . They were able to fight their way back across the Rappahannock , but Forwood received a severe gunshot wound to the chest , ending his field service during the war . Following his recovery from this wound , Forwood was assigned as the executive officer of Satterlee General Hospital in Philadelphia and served there until April 1864 . He spent the next two months in charge of the medical stores ship Marcy C . Day in Hampton Roads . In June 1864 , Forwood organized and built Whitehall General Hospital near Bristol , Pennsylvania . He commanded the two thousand bed hospital through the end of the war , until September 1865 . On March 13 , 1865 he was given brevet promotions of captain and major for faithful and meritorious service during the war . After the war . Forwood was next assigned to Fort Riley , where he served until June 1867 . He was promoted to captain on July 28 , 1866 , and fought a severe epidemic of cholera there later in the year . His service at Fort Riley was punctuated by several field expeditions of the 2nd Cavalry against hostile Indians along the upper Arkansas River . Forwood was transferred to Fort Larned in June 1867 , where he served until July 1870 , apparently keeping a wolf and a buffalo as pets . The post commander ordered him to get rid of the buffalo , terming it a " public nuisance . " On January 31 , 1869 , the post adjutant informed Forwood that " complaints have also been made of the howling of the wolf at night . It is therefore directed that you have the animal removed to someplace where it will not be an annoyance to the garrison . " It is unknown what Forwood ’ s response was to this directive , but apparently he complied . He was assigned to Fort Brady until October 1872 , but a good part of this period was spent on a leave of absence studying yellow fever at a quarantine station near Philadelphia . He was also married during this leave , to Mary Osbourne on September 28 , 1870 . He was then assigned to Fort Richardson , Texas until September 1876 . The next three years brought brief assignments to Raleigh , North Carolina , Columbia , South Carolina , and Fort McPherson , Georgia . In December 1879 , Forwood was transferred to Fort Omaha as the post surgeon . During the next three years , he served as a surgeon and naturalist for the annual military reconnaissance and exploring expeditions ordered by General Philip Sheridan . In November 1882 he was assigned to Chicago as the attending surgeon for the headquarters of the Division of the Missouri . He again accompanied the exploring expedition in the summer of 1883 , this time in the company of President Chester A . Arthur and Secretary of War Robert T . Lincoln . He published his observations from these expeditions in 1881 and 1882 . He remained at Chicago until December 1886 . Following another leave of absence , he then served for three years as the post surgeon for Fort Snelling . On May 27 , 1890 , Forwood was assigned as an attending surgeon at the United States Soldiers ’ Home in Washington , D . C . , where he remained until December 12 , 1898 . He was promoted to lieutenant colonel on June 15 , 1891 , and was appointed the professor of military surgery when the Army Medical School was organized in 1893 . From 1895 to 1897 he chaired the departments of surgery and surgical pathology at Georgetown University . On May 3 , 1897 , he was promoted to colonel , ranking only behind the Surgeon General in the Medical Corps . He chaired the department of military surgery at the same university from 1897 to 1898 and received and honorary degree of LL . D . for his contributions . Forwood departed the university in the summer of 1898 to establish a large hospital and convalescent camp at Montauk , New York to deal with the huge numbers of sick soldiers returning from Cuba . He selected the site and oversaw the construction of a similar facility at Savannah , Georgia later in the same year . In December 1898 he was transferred to San Francisco , California as the chief surgeon of the Department of California . In 1901 he was assigned to duty in the office of the Surgeon General in Washington , and that fall was made president of the faculty of the Army Medical School . When Surgeon General Sternberg retired , Forwood was promoted to the post on June 8 , 1902 . He served as the Surgeon General for his last three months before compulsory retirement for age on September 7 , 1902 . He lived the rest of his life in Washington , dying after a prolonged illness on May 12 , 1915 . Forwood and his wife are buried in Section 1 of Arlington National Cemetery .