Further stage work was not forthcoming, and he returned to medicine. There was a shortage of surgeons in the United States, which was in the throes of the Civil War, and he volunteered to became brigade surgeon in the Union army. He served at the battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. On 17 November 1864 he resigned his contract with the Army to return to the stage. He starred, in 1867, in W. S. Gilbert's La Vivandière. In later years he was to appear in America: between 1870-1872 in his own Wyndham Comedy Company; and in later tours between 1882 and 1909. On one occasion he appeared in New York with John Wilkes Booth.