Joseph Cauffman, Surgeon’s Mate

What is known of Joseph Cauffman (1755-1778) comes primarily from his letter of Wednesday 23 April 1777 sent from Vienna, Austria to Benjamin Franklin and found in the American Philosophical Society. The letter indicates that Cauffman was born in Philadelphia, educated in Europe from a young age and studied “Anatomy and Surgery” under the “the renowned Dr. [Anton] De Haen [and] … learned Dr. [Maximilian] Stoll his successor.” According to T. F. Rodenbough in “Autumn Leaves from Family Trees” (1892), the eleven year old eldest son of prosperous Philadelphia merchant Joseph Theophilus Cauffman (1720-1807) and his first wife Anna Catharine was placed in a Bruges parochial school for four years under the care of Jesuit priest Father Rector in the Flemish region of Belgium before enrolling at the University of Vienna in 1771. The sixteen year old is reputed to be the first American-born student enrolled at that university. While in Vienna, the young Cauffman struck up an acquaintance with Dutch physician and scientist Jan Ingenhousz (1730-1799). A close friend of Benjamin Franklin, Ingenhousz was the court physician to Austrian monarchs Joseph II and Maria Theresa at Vienna from 1769 to 1779. Ingenhousz wrote to Franklin of their fellowship in a 15 November 1776 letter also in the American Philosophical Society, “I enjoye sometimes the company of one Mr. Kauffman from Philadelphia, who studies physic here, and intends to settle in his native country.” Having earned a medical degree from the University of Vienna in 1776, the young Dr. Cauffman exploited Ingenhousz’ connection to Franklin by seeking direct advice concerning entering service in the American cause to which he espouses fealty, “My only wish and desire is to prove one day or other serviceable to my Country, for which, tho’ my youth and my not having accomplished my studies till now have rendered me hitherto incapable, I should be happy in spending the rest of my days, my repose and blood. Let our foolish modern moralists ridicule love for one’s Country as much as they please, I shall always think it the first duty of Man to serve his Country, as much as ever lies in his power, it being the dictate of reason, Nature and own proper instinct.” Cauffman suggests that his wealthy German Catholic family is probably known to Franklin and frankly shares his difficulties in receiving funds from his father at home in Philadelphia. The elder Cauffman, a native of Strasborg, Germany had emigrated to America in 1749 and was a staunch loyalist.  “I have given no description of my Family, as I suppose it known to you: all we have to boast of is honesty, and this, I think, is sufficient in the depraved age we live in. Nor do I imagine that my being educated in the catholic religion will prove any obstacle to serving my Country, and doing the duty of an honest and worthy citizen.” A note written by Benjamin Franklin in Latin dated 20 May 1777 regarding Joseph Cauffman in the collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania may shed light on Franklin’s involvement in obtaining a warrant for the young doctor in the Continental Navy. One source indicates that Dr. Cauffman “after a brief experience in the hospitals of London and Edinburg” returned to Philadelphia in 1777. Referencing Rodenbough, Jonathan Singerton in “Not Just the Hessians: The Habsburgs and the War of American Independence” posted on http://botstiber.org suggests that “Cauffman completed his studies early in September 1777 and set off with a few other medical students for the American colonies via France. They boarded the frigate Randolph, serving as the ship’s makeshift medics.” As Dr. Thomas Hore is identified as the frigate Randolph’s Surgeon by both William Bell Clark in “Captain Dauntless” (1949) and Tim McGrath in “Give Me a Fast Ship: The Continental Navy and America’s Revolution at Sea” (2015), it is almost certain that Dr. Joseph Cauffman instead was serving as one of the vessel’s two Surgeon’s Mates alongside Dr. Thomas Budd. In “Captain Dauntless”, Clark transcribes a 20 November 1777 advertisement appearing in the South Carolina and American General Gazette, “WANTED immediately on board the Frigate Randolph…two young gentlemen who can fill the office of Surgeon’s Mate: Such, by making application on board said ship, will meet with proper encouragement.” One of these two- Cauffman or Budd- were referred to in an account of the Randolph’s explosion later related by one of the four survivors to Charles Biddle, brother of Captain Nicholas Biddle and referenced in Volume IX of Naval Documents of the American Revolution. “He told me he was stationed at one of the quarterdeck guns near Capt. Biddle, who early in the action was wounded in the thigh. He fell, but immediately sitting up again, and encouraging his crew, told them it was only a slight touch he had received. He ordered a chair, and one of the surgeon’s mates was dressing him at the time of the explosion. None of the men saved could tell by what means the accident happened.”