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First published August 3, 2010. Updated July 2, 2020.

Interview (2012) with James W. Lowery, an embalming surgeon at Charleston Mortuary Service in West Virginia. He also does reenactments and speaks on the topic.

The National Museum of Civil War Medicine was a great resource and provided some of the photographs.

Other Sources:

“’The Battlefield Embalmer,’”Explains Civil War Techniques,” by Geoffrey D. Brown, FrederickNewsPost.com, July 28, 2010.

“Civil War Embalming,” National Museum of Funeral History, 2010.

“Early American Embalming Methods: The Civil War Helped Develop Methods to Preserve the Dead,” by Jim Rada, www.americanhistory.suite101.com, 2010.

“Embalming Surgeons and Undertakers,” www.civilwarundertaker.net/history.htm, 2010.

“The Art of Embalming in the Civil War,” by Gina Gallucci, News-Post, June 24, 2007.

“A Brief History of Modern Embalming,” www.angelfire.com, 2012.

“Embalming,” Wikipedia.

From 19th Century Newspapers:

General Wadsworth: Arrival of the Remains,” The New York Times, May 19, 1864.

“Embalming the Dead: A Process Practicable to All,” The New York Times, December 26, 1862—provided a method that people could use at home.

“Obsequies of Col. Ellsworth,” The New York Times, May 27, 1861.