Following the battle of Fort Donelson in February 1862, many of the 15,000 Confederate prisoners taken on the Tennessee battlefield were transported to Indianapolis where they were imprisoned in the prisoner-of-war compound 
at Camp Morton. The 55th Regiment Indiana Volunteer Infantry (IVI) was eventually mustered into service for three months and assigned the duty of guarding these prisoners. Upon the parole of many of the captives, the 55th proceeded to central Kentucky where it assisted in repelling the invasion of General Kirby Smith. The regiment mustered out of service in Indianapolis in October 1862.
Dr. Albert G. Preston of Greencastle was commissioned as the surgeon of the 55th IVI on July 12, 1862. Although four men perished while in service with the regiment, it's likely that Dr. Preston used this surgical kit to minister to the many Confederate POWs at Camp Morton who had been wounded at Fort Donelson.
Both before and after his duty with the 55th IVI, Dr. Preston periodically responded to Indiana Gov. Oliver P. Morton's request that he serve as a special surgeon for Hoosier units engaged on several of the Civil War's most horrific battlefields. Dr. Preston attended to Indiana's soldiers at Stone River, Vicksburg and to many of the nearly 1,300 Hoosier casualties suffered at Shiloh.
At the conclusion of the war in 1865, Dr. Preston returned to Greencastle where he continued to in practice until his death at the age of 76 in 1889.
Dr. Albert Preston's son, Joseph L. Preston, followed in his father's footsteps as a doctor in the neighboring Putnam County community of Cloverdale. Albert's Civil War surgical case was donated to the Indiana State Museum upon Joseph's death in the 1920s. It has been on display in The Hoosier Way Gallery since the museum opened in May 2002.