American Medical Biographies/Greenleaf, Charles Ravenscroft
Greenleaf, Charles Ravenscroft (1838–1911)
Charles Ravenscroft Greenleaf, Medical Corps, U. S. Army, was born January 1, 1838, at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and died September 2, 1911, at San José, California. He was the son of Patrick Henry and Margaret Johnson Greenleaf, and a grandson of Professor Simon Greenleaf, of Harvard University. He received his early education in Boston and Cincinnati, and his medical degree from the Ohio State Medical College in 1860. On the outbreak of the Civil War he became assistant surgeon of the 5th Ohio Infantry, and was the first medical officer to receive a commission from that State. On August 5, 1861, he was appointed an assistant surgeon in the United States Army. During the Civil War he early was appointed assistant to Medical Director Charles Tripler, of the Army of the Potomac, and served in this capacity during the Peninsular Campaign, organizing and later taking charge, May, 1862, of a hospital at Yorktown for 2,000 sick. The following year he prepared plans for the Mower Hospital at Philadelphia, and afterwards became its executive officer. The last two years of the war he served in the office of the medical director at Harrisburg and Baltimore, his duties being to arrange for the care of the sick and wounded from the battlefields of Virginia.
Following the Civil War he served for 20 years in the South and West and in 1887 was transferred to Washington as assistant to the Surgeon General. He was the originator of the personal identification system long used in the Army, and was conspicuous for his close identity with the general advancement of the Medical Department.
Col. Greenleaf was even more conspicuous during the Spanish-American War and the Philippine Insurrection. On May 3, 1898, he was appointed chief surgeon of all the troops in the field; organized the medical service of the Porto-Rican Campaign; he was in charge of the large Hospital Camp at Montauk Point; and later, December 2, 1898, was appointed Medical Inspector of the Army, in which position he rendered splendid service.
In December, 1899, he was appointed Chief Surgeon of the Army in the Philippines, and here, notwithstanding a lack of sympathy on the part of higher authority, he was able to properly carry on, in spite of the great difficulties of personnel and supplies, the establishment of 650 military posts in a country, for the greater part, hostile to American occupation.
General Greenleaf retired, with the rank of Colonel, January 1, 1902, at 64 years of age, and after more than 40 years service. He was later promoted to the grade of Brigadier General, retired, as provided for officers who served during the civil war, by the Act of Congress of 1904.
General Greenleaf was a man of much culture and of a delightful manner, both of which combined to make him an excellent administrative officer.
He left a wife and three children, one son a member of the Medical Corps of the Army.