Doug Decker's betrayal of Dr. John Hill Brinton has taken him all over the region.. "When I got to handle his documents, it was really neat.  He had written home to his mother almost every day during the Civil War.  His family had enough forethought to keep all of those documents and I was able to handle those and read those--what he had written to his mother about his experiences."

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What Decker has been doing with this is portraying him as best as he  can, relaying different facts and so on about Civil War medicine.  Brinton did a lot of pioneering medicine in his day.  He was definitely not the normal regimental surgeon.  Decker says, "I have taken my 'patients' to multi[p[e states and multiple locations.  I can't even list the number of places in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia that I have been to.  I have been to a lot of different places, doing this sort of thing with period-correct tools.  Most of them are originals.  I just like to explain Civil War medicine in a nutshell to people as best as I can."

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To read the rest of the article, please check out the upcoming book release They Came From Blair County Volume Three due out next year, 2024.

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* The information for this article was obtained through an in-person interview with Doug Decker

* The photos were taken by the author Eric Shields