Hammond Gazette. Vol. I, No. 47. Point Lookout, Maryland: George Everett, 6 October 1863. 4 pages, 4to, 8 1/8 x 11 in.

A weekly periodical begun on 17 November 1862 by Charley Greer for the staff and patients of Hammond General Hospital, named for Surgeon General William A. Hammond. It treated the wounded on both sides of the war and also served as a prisoner camp for Confederate prisoners after Gettysburg. The Gazette was the first paper issued from a military hospital during the Civil War, and several others would follow with their own publications. Its publication was taken over by George Everett, who would later become one of the commanders of the 38th United States Colored Troops (USCT). 

This issue includes a poem by John G. Whittier dedicated to Union heroine Barbara Frietchie (1766-1862). The almost certainly partially apocryphal story, popularized by this poem, tells of the elderly Frietchie who confronted General Stonewall Jackson and defended the American flag, crying, "Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, but spare your country's flag." In addition to war news and information regarding the hospital, the paper includes anti-Copperhead political sentiments. 

A rare Civil War newspaper. 

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