Category: Civil War Nurses

Civil War Nurses
Civil War Cities, Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women

Civil War Fredericksburg

• Maggie

Fredericksburg: City of Hospitals Image: Fredericksburg during the Civil War Prior to the Civil War, Fredericksburg, Virginia was a town of approximately 5000 residents. After the War began, it became important primarily because it was located midway between the Union and Confederate capitals: Washington and Richmond. In early December 1862, during the initial stages of the Battle of Fredericksburg, the town’s civilians were in a quandary. Should they stay or should they go? Many were reluctant to leave their town at the mercy of Union soldiers, horses and war materiel. But as Union troops crossed the river into the town and serious firing began, many townspeople became refugees, fleeing into the countryside of Spotsylvania County. They took shelter in churches…

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Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women

Women of the U.S. Sanitary Commission

• Maggie

Patriots Who Volunteered to Aid Union Soldiers Image: Men and women volunteers in the backyard of the United States Sanitary Commission depot at Fredericksburg, Virginia The U.S. Sanitary Commission opened hospitals, organized supplies and educated government officials. Women volunteers raised money, collected donations, made uniforms, worked as nurses, cooked in army camps, and served on hospital ships and at Soldiers’ Homes. They organized Sanitary Fairs in numerous cities to support the Federal army and the work of the USSC. Backstory Abraham Lincoln’s victory in the presidential election of 1860 triggered South Carolina’s secession from the Union in December 1860; ten other states would follow their lead in the coming months. Women throughout America held their collective breath. Reverend Dr. Henry…

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Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women, Gettysburg

Sophronia Bucklin

• Maggie

Civil War Nurse from New York Image: Sophronia Bucklin Nurse at Camp Letterman General Hospital Gettysburg, Pennsylvania Born in New York State in 1828, Sophronia Bucklin was a seamstress before the war, but put aside her needle and thread to nurse wounded Union soldiers. In her memoirs, In Hospital and Camp: A Woman’s Record of Thrilling Incidents among the Wounded in the Late War (1869), Bucklin recorded her experiences. Eager to do her part for the war effort, Bucklin offered her services as a nurse: The same patriotism which took the young and brave from workshop and plow, from counting rooms, and college hall… lent also to our hearts its thrilling measure, and sent us out to do and dare…

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Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women

Euphemia Goldsborough

• Maggie

Confederate Nurse and Smuggler from Maryland Euphemia Goldsborough exemplifies the Southern woman committed to the Confederacy. Against all odds and at great risk to her own personal safety, she smuggled necessities into Southern hospitals and Northern prisons. Her story is one of courage, compassion and endurance. Image: Euphemia Goldsborough at age 38 Early Years Euphemia Goldsborough was born June 5, 1836 at Boston, the family farm on Dividing Creek in Talbot County, Maryland. Euphemia was one of eight children born to Martin and Ann Hayward Goldsborough. She studied at a girls’ boarding school in Tallahassee, Florida during the 1850s, and then joined her family at their new home in Baltimore, Maryland. Leading up to the Civil War, Marylanders had mixed…

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African Americans, Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women

Black Civil War Nurses

• Maggie

African American Nurses in the Civil War Nursing was not a woman’s job before the Civil War, but by 1865, there were over 3,000 nurses serving the Union and Confederacy. In the North, most women nurses worked in military hospitals. Image: Black nurses with the 13th Massachusetts Infantry The 13th Mass fought in numerous battles, from the Shenandoah Valley to Bull Run to Antietam So many women volunteered as Union nurses that the U.S. government hired Dorothea Dix to serve as the superintendent of women nurses. African American nurses were not included in those numbers, nor were they recognized for their service for decades to come. Some were paid; many volunteered. During the Civil War, black women did serve as…

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Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women, Female Soldiers

Women of Antietam

• Maggie

Female Soldiers and Nurses at Antietam Fought on September 17, 1862, the Battle of Antietam was the first battle to occur on northern soil, and it is the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with a combined tally of dead, wounded and missing at 22,717. Also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg, it took place near Sharpsburg, Maryland and Antietam Creek. Image: Rochester House Marker Where Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was treated for his wounds The battle occurred after 75,000 Union troops under General George B. McClellan followed the 38,000 Confederate troops led by General Robert E. Lee into Maryland. On the morning of September 17, McClellan launched attacks against Lee’s left flank near Antietam Creek. The Confederates counterattacked and…

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Civil War Hospitals, Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women

Armory Square Hospital

• Maggie

Union Military Hospital in Washington DC Armory Square Hospital had twelve pavilions and overflow tents containing one thousand hospital beds filled with wounded from the battlefields of Virginia. The wounded were brought to the nearby wharves in southwest Washington and then taken to the Hospital. It was one of the largest Civil War hospitals in the area and one of many medical facilities located in downtown Washington, DC. Image: Chapel and buildings at Armory Square Completed U.S. Capitol in the distance Constructed in 1862, Armory Square took its name from the Old Armory on the Mall, around which the hospital was built. the medical facility spread accross the Mall and included quarters for officers, service facilities and a chapel. Situated…

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Civil War Love Stories, Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women, Famous Wives

Francis and Arabella Barlow

• Maggie

Romantic Legends of the Civil War Arabella Griffith married Francis Barlow the day after he enlisted in the Union Army. Francis was a well-established New York lawyer, while Arabella was 10 years his senior and a member of New York high society. The following year she joined him in service to the Union Army. Image: Arabella Griffith Barlow Arabella Wharton Griffith was a young woman of twenty-two years when she moved from rural New Jersey to New York City to work as a governess, a bold move for a woman of that time. Her vibrant personality soon caught the attention of a group of literary-minded socialites, artists and politicians. Diarist George Templeton Strong wrote that she was, “certainly the most…

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Civil War Nurses, Civil War Spies, Civil War Women

Women and Civil War Prisons

• Maggie

Civil War Women Prisoners of War Many of the arguments against women fighting in combat is the fear that they will become prisoners of war. Documentation proves that some soldiers who were discovered to be women during the Civil War were briefly imprisoned. Madame Collier was a Union soldier from East Tennessee who was captured and imprisoned at Belle Isle, Virginia. She continued concealing her gender, but another prisoner learned her secret and reported it to Confederate authorities, who sent her North under a flag of truce. Castle Thunder At Castle Thunder in Richmond, Virginia approximately one hundred female inmates were held throughout the war. Although Confederate authorities created a department at the prison specifically for the detention of “depraved…

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Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women, Educators

Harriet Foote Hawley

• Maggie

Civil War Nurse and Occasional Journalist Harriet Ward Foote, the oldest child of George Augustus Foote, was born June 25, 1831 in Guilford, Connecticut, on a New England farm – one of those rocky hillsides of which the natives say a man must own two hundred acres at least, or he will starve to death. Harriet was a first cousin of the famous Beecher family, her father being the brother of Roxana Foote Beecher, Lyman Beecher’s first wife. Joseph Russell Hawley He was born October 31, 1826 in Stewartsville, Richmond County, North Carolina. In 1842 his family moved to Cazenovia, New York, where Joseph attended the Oneida Conference Seminary, and then graduated from Hamilton College in 1847. Hawley taught for…

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