216 Proceedings of Indiana Academy of Science. 
he learned of his success. He spent a part of the prize money to buy 
a pocket set of surgical instruments. He used these instruments during 
his forty years of surgical practice and it was with pride that he ex- 
hibited them to his friends, particularly after he and the instruments 
had “retired.” 
Dr. Waterman graduated from the Medical College of Ohio in 1853. 
For two years after graduation he practiced medicine in Cincinnati, 
and, like the usual young doctor, was not burdened with patients. Con- 
cluding that he could do better in a smaller town, he moved to Kokomo, 
Indiana, in 1855, and established a partnership with Dr. Corydon Rich- 
mond. The move proved to be a very wise one. The population of the 
town and surrounding country grew rapidly and with it the practice 
and reputation of the firm of Richmond & Waterman. For several years 
these doctors led a very strenuous life—with an office full of patients 
and constant calls for country trips through swamps and over corduroy 
roads. Although Dr. Waterman remained in Kokomo but six years, 
leaving there in 1861 to become a surgeon in the Union Army, never- 
theless it was at Kokomo that he got the practical experience that made 
his work with the army so successful, and it was there that he secured 
the nucleus of his later fortune. 
Being a man of strong idealism and patriotism, Dr. Waterman did 
not hesitate a moment, when the integrity of the Union was threatened, 
to sacrifice a large and lucrative practice to offer his services to the 
Government. In August, 1861, he was commissioned Surgeon of the 
Thirty-ninth Regiment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry. Although his total 
service in the Army extended over a period of three years and two 
months, nevertheless he was not with the Thirty-ninth Regiment much 
of the time, being frequently detailed to other companies and to hos- 
pitals. During his three years of service he was Surgeon of the Eighth 
Indiana Cavalry, Medical Director of the Second Division of the Second 
Army Corps, Army of the Cumberland, then Medical Director of the 
First Division of the same Corps, and during the absence of superior 
officers was Medical Director for a month of the Corps under General 
Phil Sheridan. He was Surgeon at the hospitals at Huntsville, Ala- 
bama, and at Bridgeport and Chattanooga, Tennessee. He was twice 
captured by Confederate forces, once at Harpeth Shoals, Tennessee, and 
again at Newman, Georgia. He was held for three weeks in the prison 
stockade at Macon, Georgia, and then transferred to the workhouse 
prison at Charleston, South Carolina. He was later released (exchanged) 
near Fort Sumpter. 
At the conclusion of the war Dr. Waterman located at Indianapolis 
and once again began to build up a practice. He soon came to be rec- 
ognized as a successful surgeon and one of the best general practitioners 
