By Tracey Howerton
Local History Librarian, Boone County Borderlands
Archive & History Center, Boone County Public Library
Kentucky history boasts an endless supply of fascinating people and families. One whose story deserves to be better known is that of Dr. Benjamin Franklin “B.F.” Stevenson (1812-1902), a doctor, soldier, writer, citizen and patriot of his time.
Stevenson’s long, rich life wound through many counties in Kentucky (Mason, Scott, Fayette, Boone and Kenton, primarily), as well as up into Cincinnati and far beyond the state’s and region’s borders. Stevenson was born in 1812 in Mason County to Reuben and Cassandra Stevenson. His parents later moved to Georgetown (then George Town) in Scott County. His father survived the War of 1812, having served with Capt. Richard Matson’s company in the Kentucky Mounted Infantry.
After their father’s death in 1823, B.F. and his brother, Milton, opened a saddlery business on Main Street in Georgetown in the 1830s. By the age of 27, B.F. had enrolled as a student in Transylvania University’s prestigious Medical Department, where he studied from 1839-1841. He landed in Boone County, where, in 1843, he married Ann Eliza Tousey, the daughter of prominent merchant and land owner Erastus Tousey and his wife, Catherine.
Stevenson lived, raised a family, and practiced medicine in the Burlington community of Boone County for roughly 25 years while engaging in some of the local politics and issues of the day. The events that surrounded the Civil War would most heavily impact him, as they had so many others, and echo throughout the rest of his life.
Stevenson traveled to Louisville in December 1861 to meet with the United States Army Medical Board. He enlisted in the Army thereafter. A brief time with the 23rd Regiment Kentucky Infantry in Covington would quickly find him reassigned to a post as surgeon with the 22nd Regiment Kentucky Infantry, which was stationed in the Ashland area.
Stevenson’s war service took him along the eastern Ohio River Valley and within the interiors of Eastern Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. Later, he bore witness to the war efforts occurring along the Mississippi River, especially in Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana.
From his earliest days of service, Stevenson frequently and diligently wrote letters home to Ann, whose nickname was “Lida,” in Burlington. The letters undoubtedly were a lifeline for both the sender and the recipient. In the present-day world of instantaneous digital communication, the importance of such letters to communicate and connect cannot be overstated.
Those letters would not only record the daily and weekly details of Stevenson’s war experiences from 1861-1864 but also would serve as a window into family dynamics and the places, people, animals and landscapes he encountered along the way. In addition to Ann, Stevenson corresponded with other family members, including his oldest daughter, his sister and a separate sister-in-law.
Aside from his personal letter writing, Stevenson understood the importance of communications to the larger war effort. His oldest brother, Thomas B., a conservative with anti-Union sympathies, was a newspaperman in Maysville, Frankfort and Cincinnati throughout his career. Prior to leaving for Ashland, Stevenson arranged to write occasional submissions from the field for the Cincinnati Daily Gazette newspaper, receiving newspapers via the U.S. mail as payment. Writing under the pen name “Medico” kept his identity confidential.
Stevenson returned home from his war service in April 1864, where his country and his family were only partially intact and most definitely not unscathed. Ann died the following summer, in July 1865. His father-in-law, Erastus, had passed in January 1863, and brother Thomas had died in November 1863.
The postwar decades found Stevenson and some of his remaining family members residing in Visalia in Kenton County. He had a medical practice in Cincinnati and rode a train the 20 miles into the city. He also was busy with activities related to the Union veterans’ organization, the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.). Veterans’ pensions were a primary focus of this group’s efforts. They also successfully advocated for making Memorial Day a national holiday.
In 1884, Stevenson published a collection of his many letters in book form, titled Letters from the Army, by B.F. Stevenson, Surgeon to the Twenty-Second Kentucky Infantry. The book, dedicated to Ann, was well-received, and a second edition was published in 1886.
By 1890, Stevenson was deeply honored to be named the surgeon general of the national G.A.R. at a time of its peak popularity and membership.
It is impossible to fully capture a life lived over 90 years in such a brief synopsis. Much more can be learned from digging into this Kentuckian’s exploits and experiences. His obituary in the Maysville Evening Bulletin on July 16, 1902, described him as “having a wide acquaintance throughout Ohio and Kentucky,” and noted that his death would be “greatly deplored.”
Through the magic of today’s technologies, modern-day readers can access Stevenson’s published collection of letters online via Google Books or the HathiTrust Digital Library to learn more about this doctor, soldier, writer, citizen and patriot.