The National Museum of Civil War Medicine has over 7,000 square feet of exhibits. It was the brainchild of Dr. Gordon E. Damman, a private collector of Civil War-era medical artifacts, and first opened in 1996. In 2000, it moved into a new location: a 19th century brick building in Frederick, Maryland that was once home to a furniture maker and undertaker operation.

The museum is set up as an immersive experience, with exhibits that recreate various aspects of Civil War life: day-to-day operations in an army camp, dressing wounds in the field, evacuation of the wounded soldiers, a field hospital and a military hospital ward.

Even those who are not Civil War buffs will be interested in the amputation kits and recreations of field hospitals where wounded soldiers were separated into three categories: mortally wounded, slightly wounded and surgical cases. The museum is dedicated to demonstrating how techniques developed on the battlefields of the Civil War contributed to modern medicine.