The National Museum of Civil War Medicine, located in the heart of historic downtown Frederick, Maryland, is just one of three different museums operated under the same umbrella.

In Frederick at the main Museum, visitors will learn how the innovation of Civil War medicine impacts the present day. The Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office Museum, located in Northwest Washington, DC, is the wartime home of Clara Barton. From her boardinghouse, she brought medical supplies to the front lines during the Civil War and led the search for missing soldiers after the conflict. The Pry House Field Hospital Museum is located on Antietam National Battlefield. Visitors to the Pry House can see an original Civil War field hospital, the civilian impact of Civil War battles, and the site of one of America’s medical turning points.

Explore downtown Frederick’s storied past with our signature walking tours. Every Saturday and Sunday from April – September, walking tours of Frederick’s hospital sites will be available at 10:30 a.m. on Saturdays and 2:00 p.m. on Sundays. Walking tours last for an hour to an hour and a half. With accounts taken from the diaries and letters of the surgeons, soldiers, and civilians who were there, this guided walking tour will explore the locations of the city’s Civil War hospitals in churches, schools, and public buildings. This program is an excellent way to take in downtown Frederick as many of those same buildings still make up the historic district today.

Throughout the American Civil War, Frederick, Md., played a vital role for both Union and Confederate armies. Soldiers marched beneath the “Clustered Spires” on their way to battles at Antietam, Gettysburg, and Monocacy. The “One Vast Hospital” tour focuses on the wreckage left behind.

At any given time, the National Museum of Civil War Medicine can display a small fraction of the 5,000+ artifacts in our collection. The “Artifacts Revealed” series highlights objects from the collection that are rarely on display. Beyond offering a special glimpse of our artifacts, the videos offer a snapshot of the exciting, interesting, and unusual stories we tell at the museum. For example, most people never consider that brain surgery was even attempted during the Civil War, but the video focused on the trephine changes that perception in a little more than one minute. Changing perceptions, whether in the museum or online, can easily lead them to further discoveries about how Civil War medicine changed the world.

We encourage you to visit our museum and see our collection, that in ways would have been unimaginable only a few years ago. The museum has been tasked with stewardship of these priceless artifacts and we utilize them to tell the story of medical care in our nation’s bloodiest conflict. “Artifacts Revealed” represent our latest, evolving efforts to tell an important national story through digital means and encourage visitors to trek to the “Crossroads of War” – Frederick, Maryland.

We look forward to seeing you this year – check us out online for more information: https://www.civilwarmed.org/