Lafayette Guild LaFayette Guild ( 1826 – July 4 , 1870 ) was a surgeon in the antebellum United States Army , a noted pioneer in the study of yellow fever , and then a leading medical administrator in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War . He served directly under General Robert E . Lee as the Medical Director for the Army of Northern Virginia for all its major campaigns , including the Gettysburg Campaign and the Overland Campaign . Biography . Early life and career . A native of Tuscaloosa , Alabama , Guild briefly moved to Texas but returned to Alabama for college . He graduated from the University of Alabama in 1845 and then from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia in 1848 . He was appointed as Assistant Surgeon in the U . S . Army on March 2 , 1849 . He served in various assignments , then became the medical director of the army post on Governor ' s Island in New York Harbor . Guild studied the impact of the quarantine station , and found that isolating ill soldiers and United States Navy sailors did not prevent the spread of certain diseases such as yellow fever . In his opinion , the disease was not merely contagious , but infectious and portable . His observations were used to combat and limit an outbreak of yellow fever in 1856 . The following year , he moved to the West Coast to direct the military hospital in the Presidio of San Francisco , where he was stationed when the Civil War erupted . According to several sources , including the 1860 U . S . census , Guild was also stationed at Fort Humboldt as that post ' s surgeon . Civil War . In July 1861 , still with the rank of Assistant Surgeon , Dr . Guild was dismissed from the Federal army after refusing to take the oath of allegiance . He subsequently travelled to the South and accepted a surgeon ' s commission in the Confederate forces in Richmond , Virginia . He became Chief Surgeon and Medical Director of the Army of Northern Virginia during the Peninsula Campaign in 1862 after Robert E . Lee replaced Gen . Joseph E . Johnston in command and established his own leadership staff . He remained in that role until the army ' s surrender at Appomattox Court House . Following the Battle of Chancellorsville , Guild worked directly with Dr . Jonathan Letterman , his counterpart in the Union Army of the Potomac , to arrange a truce and a procedure so that each army could collect its wounded from the contested battlefield . During Lee ' s retreat following the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863 , Guild oversaw the evacuation of the Confederate wounded and their subsequent protection by cavalry under Brig . Gen . John D . Imboden . Guild was often frustrated by the inability of the Confederate Government to maintain a consistent source of medical supplies to the army in the field . However , his pre - war observations of the spread of infectious or communicable diseases helped him establish a series of protocols within the doctors of the Army of Northern Virginia to help combat the spread of venereal disease s such as syphilis , as well as other potentially deadly illnesses . Guild served for much of the war as Lee ' s personal physician and medical consultant , and from the Siege of Petersburg until the end of the war , he was often accompanied by his wife Pattie Aylette Guild , who moved to Virginia to be near her husband . Postbellum . Following the war , Guild moved to Mobile , Alabama , and fought yellow fever as the medical inspector for the Port of Mobile . He published many of his observations , which formed the basis for future research in combatting the deadly disease . Guild died in San Francisco , California and was interred in Evergreen Cemetery in his native Tuscaloosa , Alabama . His wife Pattie died in 1902 and is buried beside him . The Lafaytte Guild chapter of the Gorgas Medical Society at the University of Alabama is named in his honor .