Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/822

764 department of the Transylvania university at Lexington, was graduated there in 1848, and was subsequently graduated also by Jefferson medical college of Philadelphia, in 1854. After an initial practice in Albemarle and Fauquier counties, Va., he returned to his native place in 1856, and there pursued the duties of his profession in civil life until June, 1861. At that date he entered the Confederate service and was commissioned regimental surgeon of the Twenty-fourth North Carolina infantry, serving subsequently with this command in the brigade of General Floyd, in western Virginia, and under General Lee until the fall of that year. Receiving a furlough by reason of ill health he was out of the service from December, 1861, until January, 1862. He was then assigned to duty as surgeon of the camp of instruction at Camp Mangum, N. C, where he remained until the following May, being then appointed surgeon of the Forty-third North Carolina regiment. When, in June, 1862, that command was assigned to Daniel's brigade of the army of Northern Virginia, Dr. Brown was senior surgeon of the brigade, and served as such until January, 1863. Then being assigned to the staff of Gen. Gustavus W. Smith as medical director in the field, he held that post until Smith's resignation, early in 1863, and was then appointed general inspector of hospitals and camps in North Carolina, as which he served until the close of the war. Removing at that period to Alexandria, he established himself in a short time in a lucrative practice, and became widely known as a successful physician and learned authority in his profession. For thirty years his many contributions to the literature of the profession, through the various association and periodical publications, aided in the advancement of medicine, and medical and civil organizations both recognized his qualifications. From 1886 until his resignation in 1896, he served as a medical examiner of the State of Virginia. He served as president of the medical society of the State, as vice-president and member of the judicial council of the Southern surgical and gynecological association, as vice-president of the section of obstetrics and diseases of women of the American medical association, and was elected president at the Louisville session in 1892, of the Southern surgical and gynecological association. Not the least important among these positions of honor was that of surgeon of Robert E. Lee camp of Confederate veterans at Alexandria, of which Dr. Brown was an active member. Dr. Brown was married in 1852, to Mary Elizabeth, daughter of Joel Simpson, a native of England, who became a resident of Montgomery county, Md. Three of their children survive: Glenn Brown, a prominent architect of Washington; Lucy L., wife of Alfred G. Euhler, of Alexandria, and Dr. William Bedford Brown. Socially Dr. Brown occupied an enviable position by reason of his personal worth and the honorable history of his family in America. Bedford Brown, the father of Dr. Brown, was the eldest of eight children, and was born in 1791. He was an attorney, and prominent in the legal and political history of North Carolina. He entered the house of commons of the State at the age of twenty-one, served a number of years on the floor and twice as speaker; also for several terms in the senate, including one term as speaker of that body; was elected to the United States Senate in 1828 and re-elected in 1836, winning distinction in that eminent position; and then retired to private life