Diana:

       Try "Contract Surgeon, U.S. Volunteers."  Medicos were not always high
on volunteering and working for soldier pay.  So, in some instances,
necessity being the mother of invention, they were put under contract with
higher pay than Army Surgeons.  To keep the expediency from becoming Army
precedent, contracts were with U.S. Volunteers which were a part of the Army
only when federalized, but whose officer and NCO ranks were not Regular Army
recognized for promotion purposes.  A Kentucky Brigadier General of Militia,
for example, when in command of a regiment of U.S. Volunteers was a
Lieutenant Colonel.  USV after an officer's rank and name, clearly set him
apart from an officer with USA following the rank and name.  USA had
precedence.  Going the other way, during the Civil War in the Union Army it
was not unusual to find Regular Army officers with the rank of Captain
commanding a regiment or brigade of U.S. Volunteers or State troops as
Colonels, Brigadier Generals, or Major Generals.  When the War was over,
presuming they stayed in the service, they reverted back to their Regular
Army ranks.  Which is why George Armstrong Custer, a Major General of U.S.
Volunteer Cavalry, was a Lieutenant Colonel of U.S. Cavalry, when he was
killed and his command largely destroyed at the Battle of the Little Big
Horn.

John Scott Davenport
Holmdel, NJ


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