[4] After assisting to combat a cholera outbreak at Jefferson Barracks, Sutherland traveled west with the surveying party that decided upon the location for Fort Riley, Kansas and began construction of the post.

[5] At the start of the American Civil War, soldiers loyal to the Confederate States of America took over U.S. Army posts in Texas, and Sutherland narrowly escaped capture.

[5] He made his way to New York with other U.S. Army soldiers who had been stationed in Texas, and then received orders to take part in the expedition to garrison Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island near Pensacola, Florida.

[5] In April 1862, Sutherland was promoted to major and assigned to Fort Warren, Massachusetts, where Union soldiers guarded Confederate prisoners of war.

[5] Later that year Sutherland traveled west, and was assigned as chief medical purveyor for Union Army units in and around Corinth, Mississippi.

[7] During the Siege of Vicksburg, Sutherland served on the staff of Army of the Tennessee commander Ulysses S. Grant as assistant medical director and inspector of camps and transports.

[6] After the war, Sutherland was appointed as chief purveyor of the medical supply depot in Washington, and he was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1866.

[13] In Sutherland's 1895 obituaries, their ages were reported as ranging from nine to 24, and their names were given as Lucy, Edith, Catherine, Douglas, Roy, Malcolm, and Agnes.