of the United States Volunteers When the
American Civil War broke out, he joined the 79th New York State Militia. He moved through the ranks from
private to Assistant
Adjutant General by 1863. Unusually for his time, Lusk did not practice the usual custom of vilifying of the
Southern soldiers; his letters actually indicate that he respected the Southerners and spoke of "Yankee hordes" invading the Southerners' "splendid
plantations". He was promoted to
captain on February 24, 1862 (retroactive to January 19, 1862), and resigned from the United States Volunteers on February 28, 1863, He was instead appointed Assistant Adjutant-General (with a rank of Captain) and assigned to the staff of
Daniel Tyler on June 26, 1863, but resigned just two months later on September 17, 1863, He was also a staff officer of
Isaac I. Stevens until Stevens' death, and he commanded two companies during the
Draft Riots of 1863. In 1890, upon the hospital's consolidation with
New York University Medical College, Lusk became President of Bellevue Hospital Medical College. On October 5, 1886, Lusk joined New York Commandery of the
Loyal Legion of the United States. including his 1876 paper,
Nature, Causes and Prevention of Puerperal Fever, which was one of the first papers to come out in support of
germ theory. In 1882, he published
The Science and Art of Midwifery. the last of which was practically a rewrite. By some time in 1888, he had already performed three fully successful Caesarian sections within the past year. Lusk was also a recognized authority on
gynecology. ==Personal life==