Richard Sprigg Steuart  Richard Sprigg Steuart (1797–1876) was a Maryland physician and an early pioneer of the treatment of mental illness. In 1842 he inherited his uncle's 1600-acre plantation and 150 slaves, becoming a major planter and slaveholder in the state, and giving up his general medical practice. Steuart was instrumental in the expansion and modernisation of The Maryland Hospital for the Insane, today known as the Spring Grove Hospital Center. The expansion of the hospital, which Steuart considered his life's work, was authorized by the Maryland legislature in the 1850s and completed after the end of the Civil War. At the start of the American Civil War, Steuart was relieved of his position as superintendent of the hospital because he refused to sign an oath of loyalty to the Union. Despite being a slave state, Maryland did not secede, and Federal troops entered the state to ensure it remained in the Union. A known Confederate sympathiser, Steuart remained a fugitive for much of the war, smuggling medical supplies to the South. At the war's end, Steuart was reinstated as superintendent at the hospital, and achieved the opening of the new building in 1872, continuing as superintendent almost until his death in 1876. Spring Grove continues to treat mental illness in the 21st century, and is the second oldest institution of its kind in the United States. Steuart was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in November 1797, a younger son of physician Dr James Steuart and his wife Rebecca. He was the fourth of eight siblings. Two died in infancy of scarlet fever. Steuart was raised at the family mansion at Maryland Square  and educated at St Mary's College, Baltimore. Through his sister, Elizabeth Sprigg Steuart (1803-1896), he was the uncle of Charles William Kinsey (1829-1883), who served as a Virginia Congressman from 1882 to 1883, and was a Major in the Confederate Army, who was a friend of Gen. Stonewall Jackson, and was present at his death. During the War of 1812, at the age of seventeen, Steuart volunteered as aide-de-camp to the Washington Blues, a company of militia raised and commanded by his older brother, Captain (later Major General) George H. Steuart (1790–1867). He served at the Battle of North Point on September 12, 1814, where the Maryland Militia were able to hold off a British attack long enough to shore up the defense of Baltimore.