Civil War Era Hospital Artifacts: Medical bag with tools and books, wheelchair, and cot.

After the Civil War began in April 1861, Nacogdoches University suspended its classes since its president, Mr. Alexander, and all of its male students older than sixteen years of age enlisted to support the Confederacy. As the war progressed and more wounded and sick Texan soldiers made their way through Nacogdoches, the building became a wayside hospital. According to historian Libra Hilde in Worth a Dozen Men, southern women established the locally funded and supported hospitals to treat any sick or ill soldiers until they could travel home. The medical bag, tools, and books donated by Dr. Robert Carroll, used by his grandfather, the antique wheelchair, and the replica cot are similar to those used in the building during the Civil War. After a few years as an administrative headquarters for Reconstruction officers, Nacogdoches University reopened in 1868 as a university, a college preparatory school, and a grammar school.