Vignette bust image of Surgeon David P. Smith. He is shown wearing a dark double-breasted frock coat with lieutenant colonels shoulder straps.

Image has excellent clarity and contrast. Paper and mount are excellent.

Reverse has photographer’s imprint for HENRY ULKE…WASHINGTON D.C. with printed date of “1865.”

Image is still housed in its original album page. Beneath the photo the page is beautifully inscribed in period ink with “SURGEON DAVID P. SMITH, IN CHARGE OF FAIRFAX GENERAL HOSPITAL, ALEXANDRIA, VA.” The reverse of the page is also inscribed but the image on that side is gone.

David Page Smith was born in Westfield, Massachusetts on October 1, 1830. His grandfather, Dr. Nathan Smith, was one of the founding members of the Yale Medical School. David Smith entered Yale at age 16 and graduated in the class of 1851. He then attended Jefferson Medical College. He later married and settled in Springfield, Massachusetts.

In 1860 Smith traveled to Europe for study and spent six months Edinburg as well as some time in London and Paris. With the outbreak of the Civil War he returned home.

On July 31, 1861 Smith was commissioned Surgeon of the 18^th Massachusetts Infantry with whom he only served six months. On Christmas Eve, 1861 Smith was discharged to accept a position on the US Volunteers Medical Staff .during which time he was in charge of the Fairfax General Hospital.

Smith was promoted to lieutenant colonel by brevet on August 15, 1865 and was mustered out three days later on the 18.

In 1873 Smith traveled abroad again and accepted the professorship of theory and practice of medicine in Yale College and in 1877 he was transferred to the chair of surgery.

David P. Smith died in Springfield on December 26, 1880 and is buried there in Springfield Cemetery in plot Myrtle Path 1205.  [ad]

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