Father: Dr. John Bemiss (1773-1851);
Mother: Elizabeth Talbott Bloomer (1780-1863)]
1846 - M.D. degree, The University of the City of New York, Medical Department (from KY; preceptor: Dr. Samuel Merrifield, Bloomfield, KY)
1846 - Practiced medicine, Bloomfield, Nelson Co., KY
10/16/1849 - Married, Mary Frances "Fannie" Lockert
09/16/1850 - Practiced medicine, Bloomfield, Nelson Co., KY (lived with wife, Fannie L., and Dr. Joshua Gore - indexed in the 1850 U.S. Census as S. M. Bemiss)
03/29/1851 - Father, John, died in Bloomfield, Nelson Co., KY
1852 - Practiced medicine, Bloomfield, Nelson Co., KY
1853 - Moved to Louisville, KY, and opened a medical practice
1858 - Professor, Clinical Medicine, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY
1858-1859 - Editor, Medical News, Louisville, KY
1859 - Secretary, American Medical Association
1859 -18 60 - Professor of Hygiene and Med. Jurisprudence, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY
07/07/1860 - Practiced medicine, Louisville, Jefferson Co., KY (lived with wife, Fannie, and four children - indexed in the 1860 U.S. Census as "Doct Bemiss")
1861 - Prof. of Materia Medica and Therapeutics, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY
10/14/1862 - Signed contract as a Confederate Acting Asst. Surgeon [contract physician] with Surgeon Benjamin Miller Wible
12/31/1862 - Appointed Asst. Surgeon, Provisional Army of the Confederate States and assigned to duty with Medical Director Samuel Hollingsworth Stout, Army of TN
02/26/1862 - Examined by a Confederate Army Board of Medical Examiners
01/00/1863 - Served in Ringgold, GA. [Dr. Bemiss may have not received notice of his appointment as an Asst. Surgeon and may have still been serving as a contract physician at this time.]
02/23/1863 - Appointed, Surgeon, Provisional Army of the Confederate States
03/00/1863 - Acting Asst. Surgeon, Tunnel Hill, GA [Dr. Bemiss may have not received notice of his appointment as a Surgeon.]
03/15/1863 - Detailed to serve on a medical examining board for applicants wishing "to enter the Medical Department of the Army", near Fredericksburg, VA [This was probably at Hamilton's Crossing, VA.]
04/08/1863 - Mother, Elizabeth, died in Nelson Co., KY (buried: Old Bloomfield Cemetery, Nelson Co., KY)
04/10/1863 - Still serving on a medical examining board in a camp near Fredericksburg, VA. Expected to be ordered to Richmond once the Army of Northern Virginia moves *
04/00/1863 - Treated Gen. Robert E. Lee while Dr. Lafayette Guild, the Army of Northern Virginia's regular medical director, was himself sick. *
04/15/1863 - "I have been here over one month serving on the Medical Examining Board. It is expected that the Board will be dissolved so soon as the army moves. . . I will be sent again to the West.. . " *
05/20/1863 - Assigned to duty as a Surgeon, Ringgold, GA - "joined the Command since the last return"
06/00/1863 - Surgeon, Ringgold, GA
10/23/1863 - Ordered to the field
11/14/1863 - Surgeon, Marietta, GA
02/04/1864 - Surgeon, Atlanta, GA
03/02/1864 - Acting Medical Director of Hospitals, Army of TN, Atlanta, GA
05/31/1864 - Surgeon, Atlanta, GA
07/26/1864 - Ordered to report to Surgeon S. H. Stout, Medical Director of Hospitals, Army of TN, for duty in his office, Macon, GA
07/27/1864 - Surgeon, Macon, GA
08/02/1864 - Patient, Ocmulgee Hospital, Macon, GA [diagnosis: dysentery]
08/09/1864 - Returned to duty
08/21/1864 - Acting Medical Director of Hospitals, Army of TN, Macon, GA
09/03/1864 - Acting Medical Director of Hospitals, Army of TN
11/21/1864 - Surgeon, Walker Hospital, Columbus, GA
02/00/1865 - Surgeon, Hospital, Columbus, GA
04/00/1865 - Surgeon, Hospital, Columbus, GA
1865 - Professor of Physiology and Pathology, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY
06/15/1866 - Professor of Theory and Practice of Medicine, Medical Department of the University of Louisiana, New Orleans, LA
- Author of "Report on consanguineous marriages", Journal of the American Medical Association, and many other papers
1869 - Vice-president, American Medical Association
1868-1870 - Senior editor, New Orleans Journal of Medicine, New Orleans, LA
06/22/1870 - Practiced medicine, New Orleans, Orleans Parish, LA (lived with wife, Fanny, and six children - indexed in the 1870 U.S. Census as "Saml Bemiss")
1874 - Practiced medicine, 69 Desire St., New Orleans, LA
1878 - Chairman of a commission of medical experts to study yellow fever as it appeared in the Southern States
06/09/1880 - Practiced medicine, 558 St. Charles, New Orleans, LA (lived with wife, Fanny, three daughters, three sons, and one adopted son - indexed in the 1880 U.S. Census as "Saml L Bemiss")
11/17/1884 - Died "suddenly at his residence", New Orleans, LA (buried: Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville, Jefferson Co, KY)
11/18/1901 - Widow, Mary Frances, died in New Orleans, LA (buried: Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville, Jefferson Co, KY)

Note: According to Fannie Beers, a Confederate Nurse, Dr. Bemiss "was a general favorite . . . invariably the whole party brightened up at his coming. He was genial, so witty, so sympathetic, so entirely en rapport with everybody."

* Letters from Samuel Merrifield Bemiss to his family, camp near Fredericksburg,
VA. Bemiss Family Papers, MSS1B4255D23, Virginia Historical Society,
Richmond, VA. Thanks to Robert Krick for information about these letters.

Significant information for this biography was supplied by Linda Applegate Brown, the creator of this memorial, Jim Latimer and Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein.

This biographical sketch is from:
Hambrecht, F.T. & Koste, J.L., Biographical
register of physicians who served the
Confederacy in a medical capacity.
03/09/2012. Updated 10/12/2018.
Unpublished database.

The following was added by Linda Applegate Brown:

Death of Dr. Samuel M. Bemiss.

On Monday this community suffered a serious loss in the death of the well-known physician and eminent medical scientist, Dr. Samuel M. Bemiss, professor in the medical department of the Louisiana University.

The Doctor, who had for a number of years held the professorship of the Theory and Practice of Medicine and Clinical Medicine, on Monday morning appeared before his class and lectured with his usual force and perspicuity. His theme was "Apoplexy," and the learned professor was particulary clear and lucid in his illustrations of the characteristics of that disease. In the curse of his remarks he said that persons of stout build, short neck and plethoric habit were liable to be carried off in that way, and he presented himself as a type of the characteristic patient he was describing.

Such a statement seemed almost prophetic, for soon after the close of the clinic, which was held at the Charity Hospital, the Professor complained of feeling seriously indisposed, and having written a notice on his office slate announcing his absence for the balance of the day, he went home about 11 o'clock and laid down to rest on a couch in his library. His wife persuaded him to go to bed, which he did, but only complained of very uncomfortable sensations in the region of his heart, without, however, expressing any apprehensions of a serious nature.

After a time his son, Dr. John Harrison Bemiss, came in and at once went to his father, but seemed to apprehend nothing of a dangerous character, and referred his disorder to indigestion, from which his father had at time been quite a sufferer. late in the afternoon the patient's symptoms became serious and his colleagues, Profs. T. G. Richardson and S. E. Chaille, both prominent physicians, were sent for. Before they could arrive, and shortly after the summons for their assistance, Dr. Bemiss died at about 5 o'clock.

Samuel Merrifield Bemiss was born in Nelson county, Ky., on the 15th of October, 1821. He was descended from sturdy Massachusetts Presbyterian stock, of Welsh extraction. His ancestors were solid, substantial people, some of whom had borne an honorable part in the way of the Revolution, but at any early day they had emigrated to Kentucky, and had become thoroughly assimilated to the country. Dr. Bemiss inherited all the generous traits of open-hearted, open-handed Kentucky hospitality, and these were always prominent characteristics of his social life.

After receiving a fair academic education, under the care of private tutors, young Bemiss read medicine in the office of Dr. Samuel Merrifield, in Bloomfield, Ky., and in 1846 he graduated from the University of New York with the degree of M. D. For a number of years he practiced his profession successfully, giving evidence of much scientific ability until 1858, when he was elected in the chair of Clinical Medicine in the University of Louisville. he remained there until 1862, when he joined the Confederate cause, and receiving the appointment of surgeon to the army, served in Virginia and Georgia, and occupying high official trusts in the medical department, which he discharged with fidelity and ability.

At the close of the civil war he returned to Louisville, and was at once installed in the professorship of pathology and physiology in the University there, a position he held until 1866, when he accepted a call to the chair of the theory and practice of medicine and clinical medicine in the University of Louisiana, holding the place with marked distinction to the day of his death.

As soon as he became a resident of New Orleans, Dr. Bemiss heartily identified himself with the interests of the city, and he especially set to work to study yellow fever, the disease that has so terrible a place in the medical annals of Louisiana. He had already enriched his professional experience by an extended tour through the hospitals of Europe, and in 1878 he was appointed chairman of a national commission of medical experts to investigate and report on the yellow fever epidemic of the previous year in the Southern States. He went over much of the ground in person, and in connection with Dr. Jerome Cochran, of Mobile, did a great share of the practical work of the commission. In December following he was appointed on a commission ordered by Congress under the direction of Surgeon General Wordworth, of the Marine Hospital Service, to investigate the epidemic of 1878. When the National Board of Health was organized in March, 1880, under an act of Congress, Dr. Bemiss was made a member, and so continued to the time of his decease.

In the way of literary and scientific work it may also be mentioned that Dr. Bemiss was for many years senior editor of the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Journal, and he contributed to it and to other medical publications many important scientific and professional articles.

He was a member of the American Medical Association, and had been its Vice President and also its secretary, and was a member of various State and other medical societies.

In 1849 he married Miss Mary Francis Lockert, daughter of a prominent family at Clarksville, Tenn. She survives him with six children, three males and three girls, all grown to maturity. His eldest son, Dr. John H. Bemiss, is a prominent young practitioner of medicine in this city.

They have besides other substantials a valuable inheritance in the distinguished and honorable name of their deceased father, who was known for his charity and benevolence far and wide. Last evening many of the first people of the city called at the house to present their condolence and sympathy to the bereaved family, and they expressed in their grief a wide-spread sentiment that a good man, a useful citizens and a skillful and kind-hearted physician had been taken away, and that the loss was truly a public misfortune.

~The Daily Picayune (New Orleans, LA), Tues Morning, 18 Nov 1884, pg 4
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
1860 (Jul) Census, Louisville, Jefferson, KY:
Doct Bemiss, 38, physician, b KY.
Fannie, 30, b TN.
Lilly, 9, b KY.
Amey, 5, b KY.
Harrey, 4, b KY.
Lockert, 8 mos, b KY.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
1880 (Jun 9) Census, New Orleans, Orleans, LA:
Saml M Bemiss, 58, physician, b KY, fthr MA, mthr NY.
Fanny, wife, 50, keeping house, b TN, fthr NC, mthr KY.
Lilly L, dtr, 27, at home, b KY.
Aimy, dtr, 24, at home, b KY.
John H, son, 22, physician, b KY.
Eli L, son, 20, professor in Department of University, b KY.
Maggie, dtr, 17, at school, b TN.
Saml H, son, 11, at school, b New Orleans.
Bloomer, adopted son, 11, at school, b KY.