The Winchester Accord: the Confederacy and the humane treatment of captive medical officers.

Civil war prisoners of war fared badly. But there was one extraordinary wartime development that promoted the humane treatment of captive enemy soldiers. Beginning in June 1862, Union and Confederate authorities regarded medical officers as non-combatants. Largely attributable to the initiative of Hunter Holmes McGuire, Stonewall Jackson's medical director, this principle, set down at Winchester, Virginia, eased the horrors of the Civil War battlefield by allowing medical personnel to continue their lifesaving work unmolested.