Tag: educators

educators
Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women

Ellen Mitchell

• Maggie

Civil War Nurse This lady, better known as Nellie Mitchell, was at the opening of the war a resident of Montrose, Pennsylvania, where she was surrounded by friends, had a pleasant home, was amiable, highly educated and accomplished. Her family was one that was often named as “our first families.” Image: The Dying Soldier Miss Mitchell left her home in Montrose early in May 1861, and went to New York City, where she took a course in surgical nursing at Bellevue Hospital, to prepare for assuming the duties of an army nurse. The terrible sights she witnessed there so impaired her health that after six weeks she went to Woodbury, Connecticut, where she remained with friends while awaiting orders, and…

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Civil War Women, Female Soldiers

Sarah Emma Edmonds

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Union Nurse, Soldier and Spy Offended by the idea of slavery, Sarah Emma Edmonds enlisted in the Second Michigan Infantry as Frank Thompson on May 25, 1861, when the first call for volunteers came from President Abraham Lincoln. She was given the rank of Private, and was assigned as a male nurse at the field hospital of the 2nd Michigan Volunteers. In her own words, she “went to war with no other ambition than to nurse the sick and care for the wounded.” Early Years Born in 1842 in Nova Scotia, Sarah Emma Edmonds began life in a strict religious home where her father resented her for not being a boy. Emma endured her early childhood in Canada, trying to…

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Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women, Famous Firsts

Dorothea Dix and The Civil War

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Founder of the First Mental Asylums in the U.S. Dorothea Dix Superintendent of Union Nurses Dorothea Dix was one of the most influential women of the nineteenth century. A noted social reformer, she also became the Union’s Superintendent of Nurses during the Civil War. The soft-spoken yet autocratic crusader spent more than 20 years working for improved treatment of mentally ill patients and for better prison conditions. Early Years Dorothea Lynde Dix, daughter of Mary and Joseph Dix, was born in the tiny village of Hampden, Maine, on April 4, 1802. Her father, an itinerant preacher and publisher of religious tracts, had married against his parents’ wishes. He had left their home in Boston to settle in what was then…

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Civil War Women, Famous Firsts, Philanthropists

Clara Barton

• Maggie

Civil War Nurse, Educator and Humanitarian Clara Barton – pioneer teacher, government clerk and nurse – is one of the most honored women in American history. She began teaching school at a time when most teachers were men. She was among the first women to gain employment in the federal government. Barton risked her life when she was nearly 40 years old to bring supplies and support to soldiers in the field during the Civil War. Then, at age 60, she founded the American Red Cross in 1881 and led it for the next 23 years. Childhood and Early Years Clara Harlowe Barton was born on Christmas day, 1821, in Oxford, MA, to Stephen and Sarah Barton. Clara’s father was…

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Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women

Mary Ann Bickerdyke

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Civil War Nurse Mary Ann Ball was born on July 19, 1817, near Mount Vernon, Ohio. Her mother died when Mary Ann was just seventeen months old. Mary was sent to live with her grandparents, and when they died she went to live with her Uncle Henry Rodgers on his farm in Hamilton County, near Cincinnati. She received only a very basic education. When Mary Ann was just sixteen she moved to Oberlin, Ohio, and possibly worked in a professor’s home. She enrolled at Oberlin College, one of the few institutions of higher education open to women at that time in the United States, but did not graduate. She later returned to live with her uncle again, worked as a…

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Civil War Women, Female Soldiers

Frances Clayton

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Female Soldier in the Civil War Several hundred women disguised themselves as men and took the bold step of leaving the comforts of home to serve their country during the Civil War. Frances Clalin Clayton disguised herself as a man and took the name Jack Williams in order to fight in the army. For several months, she served in Missouri artillery and cavalry corps. Frances Clalin was born in Illinois in the 1830s. She married Elmer Clayton and gave birth to three children. The Claytons lived on a farm in Minnesota. Some women dressed like men and marched off to war with a relative. Others enlisted because they had no means to support themselves after their loved one left home….

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Civil War Women, Generals Wives

Fannie Lawrence Ricketts

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Civil War Nurse Fanny Lawrence was the daughter of an Englishman of wealth, J. Sharpe Lawrence, who owned large estates on the Island of Jamaica. Her parents were married at Elizabeth, New Jersey, and after some years of migratory life between England and the West Indies, decided to remain. There their third daughter Fanny was born. Image: Fanny and James Ricketts In January, 1856, Fanny Lawrence married James B. Ricketts, a distant relative on her mother’s side who was then a captain in the First Artillery, U. S. Army. James was a career soldier who held the rank of captain. He was a graduate of West Point, and fought in both the Mexican and Seminole Wars and served in various…

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Civil War Women, Female Soldiers

The Nancy Harts

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Female Militia in Georgia Near the beginning of the Civil War, almost all of the men of LaGrange, Georgia, enlisted in the Confederate Army, leaving the small town unprotected. Two upper-class ladies and some graduates of the LaGrange Female College decided that they should gather the women and form a female militia to help protect their community. They called themselves the Nancy Harts in honor of Georgia’s Revolutionary War heroine, who single-handedly defended her home against a group of invading British soldiers. Nancy Colquitt Hill Morgan had been married for only 6 months, and was only 21 years of age when her husband left for war. Mary Cade Alford Heard was 27 when her husband left, leaving her in charge…

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Civil War Spies, Civil War Women, Women in Theater

Belle Boyd

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Confederate Spy in the Civil War One of the most famous of Confederate spies, Belle Boyd served the Southern forces in the Shenandoah Valley, running her spying operations from her father’s hotel in Front Royal, Virginia. Betrayed by her lover, Boyd was arrested on July 29, 1862, and again in June 1863. Finally released but suffering from typhoid, she went to Europe to regain her health. Childhood and Early Years She was born Maria Isabelle Boyd in Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Virginia), on May 9, 1844. Her father, a hotelier and storekeeper, was prosperous enough to send his spirited daughter to Mount Washington Female College in Baltimore, where she studied from 1856 to 1860. She learned to speak French fluently…

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Civil War Women, Diaries and Letters

Lucy Buck

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Lucy Buck from Front Royal, Virginia kept a diary of the events she witnessed from December 1861 to April 1865. Her diary entries describe daily life at her home with an extended family that included parents, a grandmother, aunts, cousins, younger siblings and visitors. Image: Bel Air, the home of Lucy Buck As taken from a sketch made in 1860 From her diary, Sad Earth, Sweet Heaven Early Years Lucy Rebecca Buck was born on September 25, 1842, in Warren County, Virginia, the third of thirteen children. She learned the social graces at two local schools. Lucy was 18 years old when the Civil War began, and she lived with her family in Front Royal, Virginia, throughout the war. Built…

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