Posted inStories

The War in Their Words: This Great Struggle

by Susannah J. Ural

A Confederate Surgeon kept his faith in his cause during the war’s last days. Dr. Francis Marion Robertson was a prominent figure in Charleston, S.C., when the Civil War began. A politically active Whig and friend of Henry Clay, Robertson was an early supporter of secession who would serve the Confederacy along with his five sons. Robertson had some military training—he attended the U.S. Military Academy at West Point from 1822 to 1826, though he did not graduate, and he led a militia company in the Second Seminole War.