Fred C. Ainsworth

Frederick Crayton Ainsworth was an American army surgeon who became one of the most powerful administrators in the United States War Department. Born in Woodstock, Vermont, on 11 September 1852, he received his medical degree from the University of the City of New York in 1874 and joined the Army Medical Corps as an assistant surgeon that December. His gift for administration led to his 1886 appointment to the Records and Pension Division in the office of the Army Surgeon General, where he devised an index record card system that made military and medical records quickly available. He rose to brigadier general in 1899 and major general in 1904, and in 1907 he became Adjutant General of the Army. He opposed the reorganisation proposed by Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Leonard Wood and was forced to retire in 1912 under the threat of court martial. He died in Washington, D.C., on 5 June 1934, and a troopship was later named for him.