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A letter from POW and Assistant Surgeon James. C. Green, 5th Virginia Cavalry, to his relative, US Acting Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Rowe Smith, Jr. Balfour Hospital, Portsmouth, Virginia. 9 September 1863.

2pp, approx. 8 x 10 in. (creasing at folds, scattered spotting, light soil). Docketed on verso, in the hand of Smith: "Dr. J.C. Green / Prisoner of War / Sept 1863 / Expresses his sense of obligation &c."

Dr. Green writes to Smith from the Union's Balfour Hospital in Portsmouth indicating that his health is improving and he "shall be ready to take the field whenever [Smith's] government may see fit to set me at liberty." Green continues stating that the doctors who cared for him made his stay as pleasant as possible, winning his respect even though they were enemies. The Confederate surgeon closes asking Smith to pass on his love to Smith's wife, a relative of Green's, and expressing his hope for the future: "I sincerely hope that we may soon be able to meet in peace but rather expect we would take way different views of the terms of adjustment. If the war should last a century however I shall not forget the debt of gratitude which I owe you all."

Dr. James Colquhoun Green (1838-1884) was a Confederate soldier who entered the war as a private in 1861 and rose through the ranks to become an assistant surgeon. He is listed as captured on 12/24/1862 at Dumfries, VA,  and entered the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, DC. In July 1863, due to the intervention of Acting Surgeon General Smith, Green was moved and admitted as a patient and prisoner of war at Balfour Hospital. Upon the recovery of his health Green was moved again to military prisons in Maryland and Virginia before finally being returned to his regiment, the 5th VA Cavalry. Green was related to Smith's wife, Claramond Colquhoun Cleeman Smith, via his mother Anne Colquhoun.

Brigadier General Joseph Rowe Smith, Jr. (1831-1911) was a graduate of the University of Michigan and University of Buffalo medical school. He entered the army in 1854 serving in the Indian Wars, and entered the service of the United States as an assistant surgeon in 1861. Smith was briefly a POW in Texas in May 1861 before being exchanged. By July 1863 he was Acting Surgeon General and in 1865 became Surgeon General and Medical Director US Army. 

Though Smith is not identified by name as the intended recipient of the letter, additinal research locates another letter from Green to Smith thanking "Dr. Smith" for his kindness in having him transferred and noting that the conditions at Balfour are much better than at his previous place of confinement. A unique and rare Confederate surgeon's letter that demonstrates the ways in which the Civil War divided families, and how personal connections could be utilized to improve one's fate.