Jefferson General Hospital

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Jefferson General Hospital was the third-largest hospital during the American Civil War, located at Port Fulton, Indiana (now part of Jeffersonville, Indiana) and was active between February 21, 1864 and December1866. The land was owned by U.S Senator from Indiana Jesse Bright. Bright was sympathetic to the Confederates, and abandoned his position as Senator. In response, Union authorities took the property without compensation, similar to what happened at Arlington.

27 buildings, each 175' by 20', encircled a corridor that was 0.5 mile in circumference. 24 of the buildings were wards, each having 53 beds for patients and one for the ward master. Each ward had 4 large cast iron stoves, which warmed the building. Inside the perimeter made by the buildings was a xhapel with reading rooms, post office, drug & instrument house, and a "dead house".

Throughout the period the hospital was in use, Dr. Middleton Goldsmith was its Chief Surgeon, assisted by Chief Nurse Mrs. Arbuckle. The executive office, the second command, was held by four different people. In total, 16,120 people were treated at the hospital.

After the hospital closed, the buildings were intended for a soldier's home, and given to the state of Indiana for that purpose. After two months possession, the proposed home was instead built in Knightstown, Indiana, and the buildings returned to the US Government. Until 1874 it was used as storehouses for army materials such as clothing and blankets. Eventually, a man named Lester Holt came into ownership of the property. At his death he bequethed the property to his Masonic Lodge, Clark Lodge #40 as a Masonic orphans home around 1915. In 1995 Clark Lodge used the property to build their new Masonic temple, as the old one was difficult to maintain and its stairs inhibited older members from participating in lodge meetings. As there were seldom any Masonic orphans to house, the orphanage building was sold in 2006.