Elias Cornelius

Born in 1758, Elias Cornelius served as a surgeon's mate in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. He is best known for the journal later published as Journal of Dr. Elias Cornelius, a Revolutionary Surgeon, which recounts his capture by the British in 1777, imprisonment in New York, and eventual escape.

Sources available during this search also connect him to Somers, New York, and note that he died in 1823. His surviving narrative is valued less as polished literature than as vivid eyewitness history, offering a direct look at wartime medicine, captivity, and the daily realities faced by ordinary Americans in the Revolution.