Civil War
Confederate Nurses, Pt 1
Both the television show Mercy Street, and Heroines of Mercy Street* look at Civil War nurses through the lens of a single Union hospital, Mansion House Hospital in the occupied city of Alexandria, Virginia. I use the “memoirs” of two women who nursed there, Mary Phinney von Olnhausen and Anne Reading,** as a framework for…
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Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy
Nursing wasn’t the only role that women played in the American Civil War. Women on both sides of the conflict organized soldier’s aid societies, effectively transforming homes, schools and churches into small-scale factories and shipping warehouses in which they made and collected food, clothing and medical supplies. Eighty years before Rosie the Riveter, they worked…
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Amy Morris Bradley: Civil War Shin-kicker
I must admit to a sneaking fondness for the Civil War nurses who found a way to work outside Dorothea Dix’s nursing corps. Some of them, like Cornelia Hancock, were too young and/or too pretty to meet “Dragon Dix”‘s specifications. Others, like Clara Barton, were too independent. Amy Morris Bradley was simply too ornery. When…
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