Background
Joseph Barnes was born on July 21, 1817, in Philadelphia, the son of Judge Joseph Barnes, a native of New England.
Joseph Barnes was born on July 21, 1817, in Philadelphia, the son of Judge Joseph Barnes, a native of New England.
He received an academic education at Round Hill School at Northampton, Massachussets, and entered upon a collegiate course at Harvard University. Compelled by ill health to leave college before graduation, he began the study of medicine with Dr. Thomas Harris of the Navy and received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1838.
He was appointed to the medical corps of the Army in 1840. His first three years of service were with the forces operating against the Seminole Indians in Florida. During the Mexican War, he was with a cavalry column that crossed the Rio Grande with the "Army of Occupation" and later with Gen. Scott's command he participated in every engagement until the capture of the City of Mexico. The outbreak of the Civil War found him at Vancouver Barracks. He was ordered east and served the first year of the war with the forces operating in Missouri. In May 1862 he was detailed as attending surgeon in the city of Washington. Here he fell under the eye of Secretary of War Stanton and when in September 1863 Gen. Hammond was relieved from his position as surgeon-general, Barnes was assigned as acting surgeon-general, and was appointed surgeon-general in August 1864, after the dismissal of Gen. Hammond.
As chief of the medical department, Barnes gathered around him a group of brilliant officers and his régime was marked by the production of the voluminous Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion and by the development of the Army Medical Library and Army Medical Museum. It fell to his lot to share in the professional care of two murdered presidents. At the time of the assassination of President Lincoln and the attempted assassination of Secretary Seward, he attended the death-bed of the one and ministered to the successful restoration of the other. During the long illness of President Garfield, he was one of the surgeons who for weeks served in the chamber of the dying president. He reached the age of retirement in 1882 and died the following year. His remains lie in Oak Hill Cemetery, Georgetown.
He was married to Mary Fauntleroy, daughter of Judge Fauntleroy of Winchester, Virginia.
