Charles McKnight

Charles McKnight (October 10 1750 – November 16 1791) was an American physician during and after the American Revolutionary War. He served as a surgeon and physician in the Hospital Department of the Continental Army under General George Washington and other subordinate commanders. McKnight was one of the most respected surgeons of his day and was remembered by one colleague as "particularly distinguished as a practical surgeon … at the time of his death (he) was without a rival in that branch of his profession."

Early life
McKnight was born in Cranbury Township in the Province of New Jersey, the younger brother to Richard, his only sibling. His father, Presbyterian minister Charles McKnight, was one of the founders and trustees of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). He opposed British governance in Colonial America and was a loud voice for opposition and overthrow of the British government in New Jersey. His church at Middletown Point was burned in 1777 and McKnight was arrested. His health rapidly failed while in prison, and he was released shortly before his death on January 1 1778.

The younger McKnight attended schools in New Jersey and graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1771, in the same class as James Madison. He studied medicine and surgery privately with eminent Philadelphia surgeon William Shippen, but left before he completed his studies and entered the Continental Army in 1775.

Continental Army surgeon
In late 1775, Benjamin Church, the Director General, assigned McKnight to the Putnam House building, one of six hospitals, of the army's Hospital Department in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He remained in that division, which supported Washington's army, until, during a period of great scarcity of medical and surgical supplies for the sick and wounded, McKnight went with other surgeons and physicians to North Castle, New York with Washington's army when the Battle of White Plains began in October 1776. The Continental Army lost the battle, and the British took Fort Washington and Fort Lee, which pushed Washington's ragged army south toward New Jersey in December 1776, which set the stage for the Battle of Trenton.

McKnight remained at North Castle until John Morgan, the Director General, ordered him and Samuel Adams, Jr. (the son of Samuel Adams of Massachusetts) to set up a new hospital near Peekskill, New York, for more than 300 sick soldiers of General William Heath's division. Unable to find an acceptable site for a hospital, the two surgeons took over accommodations in Fishkill, New York, twenty miles north of Peekskill. Washington, however, sent convalescents to Peekskill because Morgan told him the hospital was there. Morgan was dismissed as Director General soon thereafter, in January 1777, due to rancor with Washington over supplies and a rampant smallpox epidemic then raging its way through the army. Morgan's management style rankled the surgeons, including McKnight, as Morgan was wrestling with Shippen, McKnight's mentor, over control of the hospitals in New Jersey. Isaac Foster took over temporary supervision of the hospitals on the east side of the Hudson River after Morgan's dismissal at Washington's request.

McKnight served later as a surgeon in the Pennsylvania Battalion of Flying Camp. On April 11 1777, He was appointed Surgeon General (also called Senior Surgeon, a subordinate position to Physician General and Director General, not to be confused with Surgeon General of the United States Army) of the Flying Hospital of the Middle Department, which moved with the army during the New York and New Jersey campaign. In December 1779, McKnight was in Morristown, New Jersey with Washington, at the encampment near Jockey Hollow, during the worst winter of the Revolutionary War.

The Hospital Department of the army was reorganized in 1780, and McKnight was promoted to Chief Hospital Physician, the highest medical position of the Middle Department. He served there until he left the army in January 1782. According to records, he was one of the original members of the New York State Society of the Cincinnati.

Later years and death
After the war ended, McKnight settled in New York City, where he married Mary Morin Scott, daughter of General John Morin Scott. He opened a private practice and was one of the first physicians to use a carriage to visit his patients. McKnight published only one article, the surgical removal of a ectopic pregnancy, but the piece was cited later by the Medical Society of London in its London Medical Observations and Inquiries. In 1785, McKnight became professor of anatomy and surgery at Columbia College (now the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons). He maintained a steady surgical practice and held his professorship until his death from pneumonia, the result of an old war injury, on November 16 1791 at age 41.

McKnight was interred in the Trinity Church Cemetery in Lower Manhattan. He left his wife, Mary, one son, John Morin Scott McKnight, who also became a physician, and four daughters.