Category: Civil War Nurses

Civil War Nurse in Virginia Phoebe Yates Levy was born on August 18, 1823. She was the fourth of six daughters of a prosperous and socially prominent Jewish family in Charleston, South Carolina. Her father was a successful merchant and her mother was a popular actress. Members of Phoebe’s family were quite active in public life during the war. Her sister Eugenia Levy Phillips, a Confederate spy, was banished to an island. Her brother Samuel was the highest ranking Jewish officer in Savannah, Georgia. The family’s wealth enabled them to gain acceptance in the community, which wasn’t easy for Jews. They moved among Charleston’s elite until a series of financial setbacks sent them to Savannah, Georgia, in 1850. Phoebe was…

Civil War Nurse At the beginning of the Civil War, the United States Government was not prepared to offer its soldiers adequate medical care. To fill that need, they created the United States Sanitary Commission on June 18, 1861, to support sick and wounded soldiers of the U.S. Army during the American Civil War. It operated across the North, raised its own funds, enlisted thousands of volunteers and was run by Frederick Law Olmsted. The Peninsula Campaign of 1862 lasted nine weeks, and inflicted a terrible cost in lives. During that campaign, Katharine Prescott Wormeley, Georgeanna Woolsey, and Eliza Woolsey Howland served as Union nurses. Working on board Sanitary Commission’s hospital transport ships, these three members of prominent Northern families…

Civil War Nurse from Illinois Belle Reynolds followed her husband to war, and ended up serving on the hospital ships at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee during the Battle of Shiloh, where she was under fire several times. Reynolds recorded her experiences during the war in a diary. Belle (Arabella) Macomber was born on October 20, 1840 in Shelbourne Falls, Massachusetts. Her father was a well-known lawyer. As a child she heard stories of fugitive slaves from her family and friends. In April 1860, Belle married William Reynolds, a druggist in Peoria, Illinois. On their first anniversary, they were in church when a messenger brought news of the attack on Fort Sumter. As soon as the news broke, William immediately enlisted in…

Hospital Matron and Nurse from Alabama Juliet Hopkins (1818–1890) was born on a plantation in West Virginia, but moved to Mobile, Alabama after marrying Arthur Hopkins. When her husband was appointed to oversee hospitals during the Civil War, Juliet went to work converting tobacco factories into hospitals. She made daily visits to the injured soldiers, and received a wound on the battlefield in the course of her duties. Juliet Ann Opie was born in Jefferson County, Virginia on May 7, 1818, the daughter of a wealthy planter. She was educated at home by English tutors and later in a private school in Richmond. When she was sixteen years old, her mother died and she left school to help manage the…