The American Plague - Molly Caldwell Crosby [53]
Reed wanted to apply for a position as a surgeon in the U.S. Army. He lacked the wealth and connections for a viable medical practice on his own—medicine at that time had much more to do with social position than actual education. What’s more, Reed’s age was proving to be an obstacle. He wrote to Emilie: “It is a remarkable fact that a man’s success during the first decade depends more upon his beard than his brains.” Army medicine would offer stability and direction to the profession, and it would provide Reed with the opportunity to do research and to travel. “Who would have thought ten years ago that one of us would want to wear the army blue?” his brother Chris remarked.
Reed studied for months before appearing in front of the examining board of the Medical Corps—an exam that would take thirty hours over the course of six days. The exam would cover not only medical topics, but also history, mathematics, Greek, Latin and even Shakespeare. One question from the examination dealt with a timely topic—yellow fever. Reed answered in handwriting neater than usual that the disease was spread by poor sanitation and prevented by quarantine.
Out of 500 candidates, Reed was one of the 30 commissioned as an assistant surgeon. After a short stay on Long Island, Reed would report to the Arizona territory. This presented a new problem.
On the frontier it would be hard for Reed to have a wife, especially a wife who had been born and raised in the East. First Lieutenant Walter Reed traveled to Washington to meet with the surgeon general, “His Highness,” as he called him in letters to Emilie.
“Sit down,” the surgeon general barked at Reed. “What do you want?”
“I would like to know, General, if I can get a leave while I am in Arizona. I am engaged to be married and would want to return.”
The surgeon general looked at the young soldier in front of him and gruffly told him, “Young man, if you don’t want to go to Arizona, resign from the Service.”
“General, I did not labor for my commission with the will I did to throw it away so hastily, nor can you deprive me of it till I act so unworthily as to cause dismissal.”
The surgeon general’s manner changed. “Have a cigar, Dr. Reed, and let’s talk it over. This is the advice I give you. Don’t marry now—go to Arizona and no doubt some soldier will become insane, you can bring him east, there will be your chance for your wedding.”
Reed decided against the surgeon general’s advice and married Emilie on April 26, 1876, taking her west with him. It was a wise decision; it would be another thirteen years before he was ordered back to Washington. The Reeds’ assignment would not end with Arizona: They served a short stint in Maryland; three different camps in Nebraska; and finally Alabama, where Reed looked after several hundred Apache Indians, including Geronimo. During his years on frontier camps Reed would deliver both his son and his daughter, and the family would adopt an Indian girl named Susie.
As the family physician for frontier camps, Reed worked among the soldiers and neighboring Indians binding wounds, performing surgery, treating venereal disease and caring for soldiers and their families when an epidemic coursed through the camp. Reed and Emilie both loved to garden and planted what vegetables and fruit would grow in the arid soil. In the Victorian era, gardening had become en vogue. In keeping with ornate Victorian architecture and the fairly new emphasis on outdoor recreation, people planted beautiful, well-kept gardens and green lawns. But Reed also saw gardening as a health benefit, planting fruits to cure scurvy, herbs for treatments and handing out vegetables to accompany the mostly game diets of the soldiers. He also strictly enforced cleanliness, believing it to be essential to preventing the spread of disease.