In June 1862 a local physician named Horace M. Pinkard received a commission as an army surgeon and was ordered to set up a hospital in Palmyra, VA along the Rivanna River. The Palmyra General Hospital was made up of 13 sites along the Court House green. These included: the Methodist Church (now across the street from its location during the war rebuilt in 1890), the Courthouse, two hotels and several private homes including Mountain View, which was for officers. The Courthouse was used as an operating room for a period of time and as a hospital in the spring of 1863 during a smallpox epidemic. Eight Georgians died there in June 1864 after the Battle of Trevilian Station in nearby Louisa County (C.K. Thomas- source, according to the John C. Settle reference). Otherwise, very little is known. It is unclear how long it remained operational, but it was not in service when Sheridan and his men came through Palmyra (March 6-10, 1865) after their occupation of Charlottesville.
The interior of the courthouse
The site of Reverend Walker Timberlake’s 1836 Hotel and Tavern was on the present lawn of the county government complex. The hotel burned in 1908, other buildings were constructed on the site but were demolished when the current building was built.
The center of Palmyra is and was a very small area and it is possible that any antebellum building still present there played a role in the Palmyra Hospital.
Appendix
Information I could find on Dr. Horace Morgan Pinkard appears below.
Richard M Pinkard (1807-1840) and Mary Jane Brand (1813-1863) were married on December 19, 1833. They would have two children both of whom would become doctors. The eldest Horace Morgan Pinkard was born around 1835 in Albemarle County, Virginia. The 1850 census shows Horace in Charlottesville and in the 1860 census he is in Fluvanna County. He marries Annie or Anna V. Shepherd in Nelson County on July 14, 1858. They may have had a daughter together. In the Civil War he serves as an Assistant Surgeon for the Confederacy from 6/17/1862- 6/14/1863, and then an Assistant Surgeon in the Field until he is captured on 4/3/1865. He was paroled the following month. He served in Palmyra and then in Richmond (Winder Hospital). After the war in the 1870 census Horace and Anna are now in Annapolis, Maryland where he is working as a druggist and boarding at a hotel. There is no mention of any children in that census record. In an 1875 directory his address is listed as 68 Main Street in Annapolis. An add that appeared in the Capital on October 1, 1876 suggests that he had moved to Washington, D.C. by then. His younger brother Richard Oliver Pinkard was probably living there also as he married his second wife on February 26, 1880, in Washington, D.C.. Richard dies in 1904 (see image below of an article in the December 1, 1904 Roanoke Evening News). Horace is still living when his brother dies.
Medical references to Dr. H. M. Pinkard include:
Two patients from the 23rd Georgia were treated at the Palmyra General Hospital by him link
In May 1864 Horace was at Winder Hospital in Richmond per the masters thesis of Dr. Charles Ballou III. The example he used below was referenced to Winder Surgical log 137.
Nellie Oliver Pinkard Payne provided the information below on an application to join the D.C. Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Nellie Payne is the daughter of Horace’s brother Richard. A notation in ancestry.com lists Horace as dying in 1906 but I cannot find a primary source for that. That same notation lists him as buried in Arlington National Cemetery but I cannot find him in the cemetery database.
Information about his life after the war.
An add in De Bow’s Review volume 5 1868 showing Horace was an MD druggist in Annapolis
He was also a Freemason
From this reference it would appear Horace did have a daughter.
This add appeared in the Capital on October 1, 1876 suggesting he had now moved to Washington, D.C.
Other family members
Source- Fluvanna History War and Reconstruction 1865-1870. John C. Settle Volume 91, pages 15-16, 2019.
Hospital Medicine in Richmond, Virginia During the Civil War: A Study of Hospital Number 21, Howard’s Grove, and Winder Hospitals by Charles F. Ballou, III
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