MovieChat Forums > Mercy Street (2016) Discussion > Didn't the Confederate posing as a denti...

Didn't the Confederate posing as a dentist kill the head of the hospital

posted 8 years ago by cagordon22
4 replies | jump to latest

I'm very confused! I thought the Confederate soldier, Frank, who pretended to be an apprentice dentist, smothered the head of the hospital in his bed.

Or was that someone else he smothered?

It was a high-ranking Union officer, for sure, and I thought it was the head of this hospital. But then, there was the head of the hospital, in following episodes.

Who was it that Frank smothered in his bed, while Union soldiers stood guard outside the bedroom door?

And why has no one mentioned that someone was smothered in their bed at the hospital.

[–] anitawilson888 8 years ago

It was a high ranking officer that was there due to illness. He was known by Frank to be carrying battle plans & maps. It is wiped that no one had mentioned finding a dead man in his bed, but maybe at that time it was less likely to consider a death to be from smothering??

[–] Nomad310 8 years ago

Thanks! I thought the same as the OP.

[–] samhmd-7489 8 years ago

That was a Union Colonel who had military operation documents with him that Frank stole/memorized.

He was probably badly injured in the first place, so when he was smothered they might have assumed he just died from his wounds.

[–] ljspin 8 years ago

But am I the only one who realized that stealing the maps/documents was pointless? This Union Colonel was sick or wounded or both, and was hospitalized in Alexandria, Virginia, miles away from the front. (At the time of the story - late spring/early summer, 1862 - there were only two fronts in the Eastern Theatre. These were the Shenandoah Valley around the city of Winchester, and southern Virginia on the "Peninsula" between the James and York Rivers. Both were mentioned in the dialogue, so that is how I figured out the time period.) Alexandria is miles away from either front. If this Colonel were was so ill he had to be taken to Alexandria to be cared for, he would have been replaced at the front. There is no way he could command from that distance and do so while recovering from an illness or wound. Hence, his plans, orders, etc. would have been replaced by the orders and plans of his replacement in field. Also, front line operations are rarely stagnant. In the days that it took for this Colonel to be moved to the hospital, and for Frank Stringfellow and his superiors to come up with the plan to steal the documents, Union and Confederate movements at the front would have rendered these plans useless.

I'm sorry, but I have been studying the Civil War for over twenty years, as a medical re-enactor and as a graduate student in history. This just bothered me.

Spin