Elias Cornelius

Born in 1758, Elias Cornelius was an American surgeon who served with the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. He is remembered especially for the journal he kept after being captured by the British in August 1777 and held in New York's Provost Jail, where he recorded the harsh conditions he endured before escaping in January 1778.

That journal later became the basis of Journal of Dr. Elias Cornelius, a Revolutionary Surgeon, which preserved his firsthand account for later readers. The surviving historical record also shows that he was the father of the minister and missionary Elias Cornelius, who was born in 1794.

Cornelius died in 1823. Though not a widely known public figure today, his journal remains valuable because it gives a direct, personal glimpse of the Revolutionary era through the eyes of a medical officer who lived it.