Thursday, July 26, 2012

Virginius W. Harrison, student 1845-1846

Harrison attended the University of Virginia after leaving R-MC, and then graduated from the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1851. He was a physician in Petersburg, VA at the beginning of the war, having also served as postmaster at City Point, VA (now Hopewell) for several months in 1854. Dr. Harrison enlisted as a private in Co. F of the 5th VA Cavalry on September 2, 1861. He was appointed Assistant Surgeon on October 8, 1861 and detached for hospital service. He was in charge of Petersburg's General Hospital #20, located in the Royster Brotehr's Tobacco Factory building on Twenty-fifth Street, until June 1863. He was promoted to Surgeon on January 5, 1863, retroactive to October 7, 1862. In July of  1863, he was sent first to the hospital at Mt. Jackson, VA, and then to Harrisonburg, VA, and was back in Richmond by December 1863.  On September 17, 1864, he was attached to Kirkland's Brigade and by December 1864 was in Wilmington, NC. He was paroled in Richmond, VA on May 11, 1865.

After the war, Harrison practiced medicine in Petersburg, VA until his death on April 29, 1873. He is buried in Blandford Cemetery in Petersburg, VA.

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