National Museum of Funeral History
This diorama illustrates how Dr. Holmes embalmed on the battlefield. A field embalmer would use whatever was
available or what could be found to serve a purpose. A tarp was erected to protect the doctor from the sun and elements and to create
some privacy for the work. Notice the black bunting draped over the front of the tarp, representing mourning of the dead.
 Here, Dr. Holmes is making use
of a discarded door supported by two whisky barrels as an embalming table. The wooden box on the ground contains bottles of embalming fluid.
Dr. Holmes (standing)
is embalming the body of a soldier brought from the battlefield. His right hand clutches a rubber squeeze ball, which pumps the fluid into the deceased, a process
that could take several hours.
After embalming was complete, the remains were placed in a wooden coffin located to the right of the table, later to be buried
locally or shipped to the soldier's family.
Dr. Holmes charged $7.00 per embalming for an enlisted man and $13.00 for an officer.
 The Civil War required Dr. Holmes to be on the move from one battlefield to the next. The tent located to the left of the main embalming tent was his home.
It was portable and allowed him to take his comforts with him while staying close to the fighting.
Inside the tent are Dr. Holmes' personal belongings: his bed (complete with feather mattress, pillow,
and wool blanket), a chamber pot at the end of the bed, a wash basin stand and mirror in the corner, a water pitcher, a wooden handle razor, a shaving mug with brush, and a wooden comb. A lantern stands on top of the washbasin providing the only source of light in the evenings.
On the left, Dr. Holmes placed his chair, table, and a desk for record keeping, where he wrote down the name, address (if known), rank, and unit, of each soldier he embalmed, along with the date.
Pictures of his wife and family, a pair of glasses and a Bible completes the desktop, as well as a pistol for protection. |
|
Dr. Holmes Biography
Son of a well-to-do merchant, Thomas Holmes was born in New York City in 1817. Early in life he developed an interest in medicine and studied at the College
of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University from 1847 to 1849. He also practiced pharmacy and experimented with a variety of drugs and compounds, which turned toward the production of an efficacious embalming fluid he might sell
to surgeons, anatomists, and later, undertakers.
Soon after the start of the Civil War, Holmes was in Washington DC, where he distributed thousands of circulars to the soldiers who crowded into the capitol, offering to embalm at no charge.
Holmes' reputation as an embalmer skyrocketed with his embalming of the body of Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth, who had served as a clerk in President Lincoln's Springfield law office and later as a security guard to the president. A Mr. W.A. Kelly, along with the first lady,
Mrs. Lincoln, viewed the body in the White House East Room, and found Ellsworth's face as "natural as though he were sleeping a brief and pleasant sleep."
Washington newspapers echoed Kelly's favorable judgment, and Holmes' reputation was secured.
|
|
|
|
