American Medical Biographies/Blackford, Benjamin
Blackford, Benjamin (1834–1905)
Benjamin Blackford, army surgeon, the son of Dr. Thomas T. Blackford, of Luray and, later, of Lynchburg, Virginia, was born in Shenandoah County on September 8, 1834. His father removing to Lynchburg while he was a youth, he attended a private school in that town conducted by his uncle, William M. Blackford, then editor of the Lynchburg Virginian. Afterwards he obtained a clerkship in the post-office, and by hard work and close economy, saved enough money to go to the University of Virginia, and later to the Jefferson Medical School in Philadelphia, from which he graduated in 1855. After serving a term as an interne in Blockley Hospital, he began to practise in Lynchburg.
He was a member of the American Association of Superintendents of Hospitals for the Insane, and the Medical Society of Virginia. Of this latter society he was several times a vice-president, president in 1887, and was elected an honorary member in 1888. He was also an ex-president of the Lynchburg Medical Association.
At the outbreak of the Civil War he was elected surgeon of the Lynchburg Home Guard, Company G., Eleventh Virginia Infantry, and went to the front with that command. He was soon put in charge of the hospital at Culpeper, and later was placed in command of the military hospital at Liberty (now Bedford City), where he remained until the end of the war, when he resumed practice in Lynchburg. He gave considerable attention to eye affections, without, however, becoming a specialist. He was one of the ninety-two charter members who founded the State Society in 1870. In 1890 he was elected superintendent of the Western State Hospital for the Insane at Staunton, and filled this position until his death.
Dr. Blackford was a Virginia gentleman of the true type, polite, gentlemanly, courteous, mindful of the feelings of others. As superintendent of the hospital, he filled the position with marked ability and success, adding many improvements to the institution, and ever looking after most carefully the well-being of his unfortunate charges.
He married, in 1871, Mrs. Emily Neilson Byrd, and was survived by six sons.
He died of pneumonia at his home in Staunton on December 13, 1905, just two weeks after the death of his wife from the same disease.