"Angels of the Battle Field"

    Many women during the civil war wanted to be able to help in ways they were thought unable to do.  One of the more well known jobs for women was to wokr as nurses both on the battle field and in hospitals. The saw their share of blood and battle.  The following letter was written by Cornelia McDonald, a Confederate nurse, to a friend in Richmond it shows what the nurses saw in the hospital tents where they served their country.

    "A ball had struck him on the side of the face, taking away both eyes, and the bridge of his nose.  My faintness increased and I had to stop and lean against the wall to keep from falling......I feel assured I shall never feel horrified at anything that may happen to me hereafter.....I could stand by and see a man's head taken off I believe- you get so used to it here...... Amputations, it is a melancholy sight, but you have no idea how soon one gets used to it.  Their screams of agony do not make as much an impression on me as the reading of this letter will on you."

    The women that decided to work on the battle field as nurses saved many lives and were ultimately the reason some husbands could return to their families. 

    Nurses are the most recognized women, but they were not originally honored for their coragious work.  When the war ended the women were expected to go back to their privious role in society.  

     "The nurses won no honors, received no glory, but upon their shoulders fell the task of tending to their own wounded, while trying to retain some semblance of normalcy in their everyday existence."

                                                                            -Robert Broadwater

The Nurses' Stories

Cornelia Hancock

    Cornelia Hancock was born on February 8, 1840, in New Jersey.  She had always wanted to escape from the Quaker community where she lived.  Her chance came in July 1863, when she joined her brother in law, Dr. Henry T. Child.  She served as his nurse.  After the war had begun, she traveled alone to Gettysburg and arrived three days after the battle.  She wrote her sister:

    "We went....to one of the churches, where I saw for the first time what war meant.  Hundreds of desperately wounded men were stretched out on boards laid across the high-backed pews so closely as they could be packed together.  The boards were covered with straw.  Thus elevated, these poor suffers' faces, white and drawn with pain, were almost on level with my own.  I seemed to stand breast-high in a sea of anguish."

      Cornelia cooked and cleaned, but eventually was put in charge of ten tents of amputees.  Two months after her arrival in Gettysburg, Dr. Child recommened that she go home to rest.  She went to live with her sister in Philidelphia, but moved on to work to help freed slaves in Washington.  She also worked for many charities throughtout her life.  Cornelia even established "Wrightsville" where she cleaned up the slums and created a town. She died at the age of eighty-seven of chronis nephritis. Cornelia lived a life full of charity and kindness.  


Annie Etheridge

Annie Etheridge was born on May 3, 1844, in Michigan.  In June, her father enlisted in the army, and Annie, not wanting her father to leave, went with the troop and worked as a nurse and cook.  She was called "Gentle Annie" or "Michigan Annie" by the soldiers.  Her acts of devotion earned her the Kearny Cross.

     A poem was written about her by the soldiers.  

             To  Miss Anna Etheridge-

             Hail, daugther maid, whose shadowy form

             Born like a sunbeam on the air, 

             Swept by amid the battle-storm, 

             Cheering the helpless sufferers there,

                                                                          Amid the cannon's smoke and flame,

                                                                          The earthquake roar of shot and shell,  

                                                                          Winning by deeds of love, a name

                                                                           Immortal as the brave who fell.

       Annie served as a cook and nurse until the end of the war. President Andrew Jonhson rewarded her by giving her a civil service position in Detroit.                                                                                              


Mary Ann Bickerdyke

         Mary Ann Ball was born in Knox County, Ohio on July 19, 1817.  After her parent's death, she went to live with her aunt and uncle who taught her the art of medicine.  In 1833, Mary attended Oberlin College.  After her graduation she married Robert Bickerdyke, a widower with two young sons.  The family moved to Galesburg, Illinois.  Three years later Robert passed away, and Mary turned to her medical training to support her children.

         In 1861,  the Civil War came to Illinois.  Mary accompanied some supplies to a camp.  The situation that she found there was terrible.  No one had taken charge of the situation, and the floor  was covered with blood and vomit.  Mary took control of the situation.  While in the camp she met Mary Stafford and put her to work cooking and washing.

         Mary went where she wanted to during the war, and worked to improve conditions in many camps.  She settled in Cairo hospital where she solved many problems.  When food for the soldiers was being eaten by others, she created a system to put it right.  She turned Cairo into a model medical facility.

        When the Cairo hospital was firmly established she moved on to the battle field.  She was described by Benjamin Woodward, a Federal physician, "as a woman rough, uncultivated, even ignorant, but a diamond in the rough."  Mary was known for her "ignorance" to regulations and cleaning up camps that no one else would. 

        She created kitchens and army laundries under the service of Generals Grant and Sherman.  Her love for the common soldiers earned her the tittle "Mother Bickerdyke."  She even went out on battle field and checked to make sure that no soldier laying on the field was still alive. 

         Some people brought charges up against Mary from not always working for any one but God.  In on of these cases General Sherman defended her saying, "She has more power than I......she outranks me."  Charges continued to be brought against her. She say this in a speech accepting twelve hundred dollars for each month until the end of the war to help the soldiers:

         "I am much oblidged to you gentlemen for the kind things you have said.  I haven't done much, no more than I ought, neither have you.  I am glad you are going to give me twelve hundred dollars a month for the poor fellows in the hospitals, for it's no more than you ought to do, and isn't half as much as the soldiers in the hospitals have given for you.  Suppose, gentlemen, you had got to give tonight one thousand dollars or your right leg, would it take long to decide which to surrender? Two thousand dollars or your right arm; five thousand dollars or both your eyes; all that you are worth or your life. 

        But I have got eighteen hundred boys in my hospital in Chattanooga who have given one arm and one leg, some have given both, and yet they don't seem to think they have done a great deal for their country.  And the graveyard behind the hospital, and the battlefield a little farther off, contain the bodies of thousands who have freely given their lives to save you and your homes and your country from ruin.  Oh, gentlemen of Milwaukee, don't let us be telling what we have given and what we have done!  We have done nothing and given nothing, in comparision with them!  And it's our duty to keep on giving and doing just as long as there's a soldier down South fighting and suffering for us."

        Mother Bickerdyke returned to th battlefield as soon as possibly.  General Grant even gave her a pass that let her travel where ever she wanted by whatever means.  After traveling to battle field after battle field and seeing the lack of care and the lack of equitment to take care of the soldiers, she went to General Sherman's headquarters.  She demanded that Sherman provide her with these things.  Finally, after persisting, she got her wish.

       Thoughtout Sherman's march over the South, Bickerdyke and her assistant, Eliza Porter, kept the medical relief at the peak of effectiveness.  She became widely known and respected.  All soldiers were cared for as if they were her own sons.  She fixed dietary problems as well as the over all health problems in countless military camps and hospital tents. 

        In 1867, Mary Bickerdyke served as the Assitant Superintendent of Chicago's Home for the Friendless.  The organisation helped recovering soldiers, widows, and orphans that were alone.  In 1876, Mary worked for the Salvation Army.  She would often say, "I served in our Civil War from June 9, 1861, to March 20, 1865.  I was in the nineteen hard-fought battles in the Departments of Ohio, Tennessee, and the Cumberland Armies.  I did the work of one, and I tried to do it well."  In her last years she lived in Kansas with her two sons.  She has been honored at soldiers conventions in Kansas.  Mary Ann Bickerdyke died on November 8, 1901, in Bunker Hill, Kansas at the age of eighty-four.  She was buried with miltary honors.