The Post-War Legacy of Civil War Dentistry

- Kavn Aulakh

The Civil War is often remembered for its devastating battles and medical crises. However, one greatly overlooked aspect of a soldier’s health was dental care. Toothaches, infections, and broken teeth plagued the armies. The Union Army entered the Civil War without a single commissioned dentist, leaving soldiers at the mercy of overworked and untrained surgeons for makeshift treatments. The Confederacy, faring only slightly better, experimented with dentists by 1864, but dentistry as a whole remained primitive by modern standards. While the war ended without an official military dental corps, the widespread suffering of soldiers—combined with the advocacy of wartime dentists and professional organizations—laid the foundation for systemic change. The legacy of Civil War dentistry can be traced directly into the creation of the Army and Navy Dental Corps in the early 20th century and the recognition of oral health as essential to both military readiness and civilian life.

The Civil War highlighted the devastating effects of neglecting dental care. Soldiers often entered service with compromised teeth, the result of poor hygiene and diets dominated by hardtack, salted meats, and excessive sugar. These conditions accelerated decay and gum disease. For most men, treatment for such pain meant extraction without anesthesia, usually performed by untrained surgeons with crude instruments. In the Confederacy, the conscription of civilian dentists into military hospitals by 1864 revealed both the immense demand for care and the benefits of professional treatment. These efforts demonstrated the direct impact of oral health on a soldier’s ability to fight, eat, and survive, and they planted the seeds for post-war reform.

Even before the war ended, organized dentistry began lobbying for recognition. In 1863, the American Dental Association, then known as the American Dental Convention, petitioned for a military dental corps, citing the impact of dental problems on soldiers’ efficiency. A prominent dentist, Samuel S. White, even met with President Abraham Lincoln to argue the case. However, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton dismissed the proposal as an unnecessary luxury amid wartime crises. Confederate dentists who had treated soldiers in makeshift hospitals continued to document the oral suffering they witnessed. Their reports ensured that dentistry remained part of the post-war conversation on military medicine, even though progress was slow.

The decades following the war saw very gradual change. In 1872, Dr. William Saunders was hired as the first Army dentist at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. However, he was employed only as a contract “acting assistant surgeon” rather than a commissioned officer. Saunders is nevertheless regarded as the Army’s first official dentist. Through the late 19th century, additional contract dentists served at larger posts, but their presence was inconsistent and underfunded. Meanwhile, Civil War veterans, many of whom carried lifelong dental problems due to wartime neglect, were living reminders of the importance of dentistry in the military. Their hardships added weight to the argument that oral health was not a luxury but a necessity for both readiness and long-term health.

The tipping point came with the Spanish–American War of 1898, when the U.S. military once again faced high rates of preventable dental problems. Soldiers were sidelined by abscessed teeth or unable to chew their rations, reigniting the call for reform. By 1911, the U.S. Army officially established its Dental Corps, followed by the Navy in 1912. Dentists became permanent members of the commissioned medical staff, tasked with ensuring that oral health no longer undermined fighting capacity. This milestone can be traced directly back to lessons first learned during the Civil War.

The war also reshaped dentistry beyond the military. Wartime shortages forced practitioners to innovate with materials such as tin foil and amalgam, which later became standard alternatives to gold fillings. The postwar decades saw rapid advancements, including the invention of the foot-powered drill in 1871, the adoption of antiseptic practices, and the professionalization of dentistry through new schools and licensing standards. These changes helped dentistry shed its old reputation as the trade of “tooth-pullers” and emerge as a respected healthcare profession.

Today, the legacy of these reforms is clear in the military’s concept of dental readiness. Soldiers undergo comprehensive dental exams before deployment, and those with untreated abscesses or other serious conditions are barred from overseas duty until treatment is complete. This policy is a direct descendant of Civil War lessons, when poor oral health undermined soldier effectiveness.

While the Civil War ended without a formal dental corps, it fundamentally reshaped the trajectory of dentistry in America. The war exposed the cost of neglect, demonstrated the value of skilled practitioners, and galvanized post-war advocacy that eventually brought dentistry into the heart of military medicine. Beyond the battlefield, the war accelerated dentistry’s professionalization, transforming it into a respected and essential branch of healthcare. In both military and civilian contexts, the Civil War stands as the crucible in which modern dentistry was forged.



References

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