New Orleans: Services, Policies, Slaves


Plea for medical school, New Orleans, 1862

Plea for medical school, New Orleans, 1862
Item 70237   info
Maine Historical Society

Before Shepley had been in New Orleans very long, he began receiving pleas and requests from city institutions that were suffering because of the war and the occupation, reports about traitors or others who might threaten the Union cause, and requests relating to slaves and their status.

Here, Dr. Thomas Hunt, dean of the Medical Department of the University of Louisiana at New Orleans, wrote a plea that the troops leave his medical school alone.

Hunt had previously written a report to the U.S. forces about the school, as required when Union forces gained control of New Orleans.

He told Shepley Union troops had taken possession of the Medical Department despite the assurance he had received from Major Gen. Butler that such an action would not occur. The forces broke a passage through a wall.

Hunt wrote that the study of anatomy, including dissecting bodies, required privacy and seclusion.

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