John M. (John Mullin) Batten

Born in 1837, John Mullin Batten was an American doctor and writer best remembered for Reminiscences of Two Years in the United States Navy (1881), a memoir drawn from his service as an acting assistant surgeon in the U.S. Navy during the Civil War.

His surviving books suggest a wide range of interests beyond medicine. Alongside his naval memoir, he also published Random Thoughts, Rhythmic Flashes (1904), and To and from Rome, showing a writer drawn to recollection, poetry, and travel as well as firsthand history.

For modern listeners, Batten is most interesting as a witness. His writing preserves the everyday texture of wartime service and the voice of a man who had seen both hardship and change in 19th-century America.