Women in the Civil War

by Larry G. Eggleston

  Mary Ashton Rice Livermore—Nurse, Teacher, Writer, and Editor

  “If this war has developed some of the most brutal, bestial and devilish qualities lurking in the human race, it has also shown us how much of the angel there is in the best men and women.” This comment was made by Mary Ashton Rice Livermore to describe the great generosity of the American people in their efforts to help in the Civil War by volunteering their time and their talents and donating their money and goods to the Sanitary Commission.

  Mary Ashton Rice Livermore was born in 1820 and was 41 years old when the Civil War began. She was a nurse, teacher, writer, and editor in Chicago, Illinois, and has the distinction of being the only woman reporter to cover the 1860 Republican Convention.

  After several ads appeared in the local newspapers requesting donations for the soldiers, people began to respond and food, clothing, and medicine began to pour in. Soon the task of control and distribution became too big to handle. Mary Livermore made an attempt to impose some order to this chaotic situation. She set up and organized the Northwestern Branch of the United States Sanitary Commission in Chicago, Illinois.

  The Sanitary Commission derived its name from a British agency, which was established by Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War to improve the living conditions of the soldiers.

  Mary Livermore was assigned as director of the Chicago office. Under her leadership, it delivered over 30,000 boxes of supplies to the army camps and hospitals by 1863. However, the shipping costs for this large volume of supplies had seriously depleted the Commission’s operating funds. They had to find a way to raise needed funds to continue their aid to the soldiers.

  Mary Livermore and her colleagues Jane Hoge and Eliza Porter devised an unusual fund raising scheme, which they called a “Sanitary Fair.” When the idea was presented to the officials of the Sanitary Commission, it was laughed at but not completely turned down. The board members tolerated the idea and let the women proceed even though they expected total failure.

  The women then went to work. They sent out thousands of circulars to newspapers, churches, and businesses in September 1863 announcing “A Grand North Western Fair” to be held in Chicago in October. The circular solicited donations of any item that could be sold at the fair to raise money for the Sanitary Commission.

  The goal of the three women was to raise $25,000 for the Commission. Donations began to pour in and soon so many items had arrived that the Commission had to rent three huge exposition halls for the fair.

  The fair opened at ten o’clock the morning of October 27, 1863, with a three-mile long parade through the streets of Chicago. The parade ended at the exposition halls. The Commission charged fairgoers a seventy-five cents entrance fee which allowed them entrance into all three halls and a meal in the dining area.

  The fair ran for 14 days with an average daily attendance of over 5,000 people. The original goal was surpassed and the fair raised over $100,000 in revenue for the Commission. The officials who laughed at the plan were no longer laughing.

  The idea of a Sanitary Fair spread to other major cities. They raised a combined revenue of $4,000,000 for the Commission. During the entire war it is estimated that the Sanitary Commission collected and distributed more than $25,000,000 in aid to the soldiers. This great outpouring of generosity was the great contribution made by the civilian population to the war effort.

  Mary Livermore became the national director of the United States Sanitary Commission. As director she toured army camps, hospitals, and battlefields. She also lectured around the country. She wrote of her experiences in her memoir titled My Story of the War.

  She indicated in her memoir that she encountered several extraordinary women in her tours of the army camps, battlefield, and hospitals. She mentioned several well-known vivandieres and Daughters of the Regiment such as Bridget Divers, Anna Etheridge, and Kady Brownell, who were in some of the units she visited.

  In addition to these women, she encountered some women soldiers. In one account she was visiting the 19th Illinois Infantry Regiment and observing a drill by the troops, when the captain approached her and asked if she saw anything peculiar about one of the soldiers whom he pointed to. She immediately realized the soldier was a woman disguised as a man. She shared her suspicions with the captain who stated that he suspected the same.

  The review was halted and the soldier was taken out of the ranks and confronted. She stated that her husband was in the regiment and it would kill her if she could not march by his side. She begged the captain to let her stay. He refused her request and she was discharged from the regiment.

  Within three days she attempted suicide by jumping into the Chicago River. An alert Chicago policeman saw her jump and rescued her. She was placed in a charity home. Mary Livermore went to the home to comfort her and convince her to abandon the desire to stay in the army with her husband.

  Mary could not dissuade the young woman and left with her mission unaccomplished. However, within a few days the woman had disappeared from the home. It is suspected that she intended to find her way back into the army.

  Mary Livermore wrote in her memoir that it was estimated that a little less then 400 women were disguised as men and serving as soldiers. She made an incredible impact on the Civil War by her efforts to get needed supplies, medicine and clothing to the soldiers and hospitals.

  Sally Louise Tompkins—Confederate Nurse

  There was only one woman commissioned in the Confederate army. Her name was Sally Louise Tompkins.

  She was born on November 9, 1833, at Poplar Grove, Virginia, the daughter of Christopher Tompkins, a wealthy businessman and politician. She was 28 years old when the Civil War began and had already established herself as a philanthropist and nurse.

  Because her father had died prior to the beginning of the Civil War, Sally and her sister moved to Richmond with their mother. They were living in the Arlington House in Richmond when the war began. Instead of taking her wealth and fleeing to Europe to sit out the war, she felt a patriotic duty to stay in Richmond and do her part for the Confederacy.

  After the Battle of First Manassas/Bull Run, a Richmond judge named John Robertson moved out of Richmond into the country. He offered his Richmond home to Sally Tompkins to use as a hospital during the war. The house was a two story home located on the northwest corner of Third and Main streets in Richmond.

  Sally equipped the hospital at her own expense and converted the home into a 22-bed infirmary. On the morning of July 31, 1861, she opened the doors of the Robertson Hospital for the care of sick and wounded Confederate soldiers. She charged no fees for her services.

  The Confederate government assigned six surgeons to the hospital. Sally ran the hospital with military discipline and demanded the highest standards of sanitation. The government supplied only food, medicine and other supplies for the sick and wounded soldiers, and Sally supplied every thing else at her own expense. She was the first woman in the South to support a hospital.

  Being a nurse in the South was not considered to be an acceptable profession for a woman. Females were considered too delicate and weak for such work. However, many dedicated Southern women became nurses on their own, especially when the fighting came close to their homes. These women offered their homes as hospitals and assisted in the treatment of the wounded. Many other Southern women unofficially volunteered and worked in hospitals as helpers.

  Since the Confederacy had not established a network of military hospitals such as the Union army had, they relied mainly on the civilian population to care for the wounded. Many private hospitals sprang up across the South and with these hospitals came abuses such as overcharging and poor care. As the problem grew, the Confederate government was forced to take over the hospitals and enact a law that soldiers would be treated in institutions under direct control of the government and managed by a commissioned officer with a rank no lower than captain.

  Even though the Confederate government took over the hospitals in la
te 1861, it wasn’t until September 1862 that the employment of women nurses in military hospitals was approved. There were no government standards set for becoming a nurse nor was there a formal training course in place. They relied on natural ability only.

  The new law required that all soldiers be removed from private hospitals and moved to the military hospitals. This law put Sally Tompkins’ hospital in danger of closing. While several ambulances waited at her hospital to remove the soldiers, Sally went to see President Jefferson Davis.

  She asked that her hospital be made exempt from the law. She cited her good reputation and the hospital’s record. She had returned more healed soldiers back to their units and had a smaller death rate than any other hospital.

  President Davis was already aware of her extraordinary record, but could not overrule a law that was enacted by the Confederate Congress. Realizing that her services were vital to the Confederacy, he found a solution which would not violate the law and would keep Sally working for the Confederacy. He commissioned her a captain in the Confederate army and made her head of the hospital. She accepted the solution on the condition that her name not appear on the military payroll. She would work without pay.

  On September 9, 1861, L.P. Walker, the Confederate Secretary of War, signed her commission as a Captain of Cavalry (unassigned).

  The Robertson Hospital gained such a good reputation that wounded soldiers were requesting to be sent there for treatment. Many of the worst injured soldiers from the battlefields were sent to Sally Tompkins’ hospital. Over the course of the entire war this 22-bed hospital treated 1,333 soldiers and only 73 died of their wounds.

  The hospital closed on June 13, 1865, but Sally Tompkins continued working with the southern veterans and often spoke at veteran reunions throughout the South.

  She lost her fortune when the Confederacy was defeated. She continued to work as a nurse and when her meager salary became insufficient to support her, she went to live in the Home for Confederate Women in Richmond.

  The Sally Tompkins chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy was formed in her honor. She died in Richmond, Virginia, on July 25, 1916, at the age of 83 and was buried with full military honors.

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  Women Doctors in the Civil War

  By the time the Civil War began, there were only a handful of women doctors in the entire country. Records indicate that as of 1858 there were only 300 women doctors who had actually graduated from a medical school as opposed to 18,000 degreed male doctors. Two of these extraordinary women served the Union army during the Civil War; they were Dr. Mary Edwards Walker and Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell.

  Mary Edwards Walker—Doctor

  Mary Edwards Walker was born in 1831 in Oswego, New York. Her father was a self-educated local doctor as well as a farmer. Mary was considered a non-conformist and insisted on wearing male attire. She was arrested many times for being in men’s clothing but adamantly refused to give up her right to dress as she pleased. She often stated her belief that woman’s clothing was too binding, heavy, and uncomfortable to the point of being unhealthy for a person to wear.

  Mary Walker followed in her father’s footsteps and became a doctor. In 1855, at the age of 24, she graduated from Syracuse Medical College in Syracuse, New York.

  She was 29 years old when the Civil War began and her deep loyalty to the Union prompted her to go to Washington, D.C., and volunteer her services as a doctor. She felt that she would be welcomed as a volunteer since she was a degreed doctor and had been practicing medicine for almost six years in Oswego.

  When she reached Washington in September 1861 she applied for a commission with the U.S. Army as a surgeon. She was met with strong opposition and was denied a commission. The only position she was offered was as a nurse. She finally went to work without pay as a nurse at the Indiana Hospital in Washington where soldiers from First Manassas/Bull Run were being cared for. She only received meals and lodging during the two months she was at the hospital. After the two months she returned home to Oswego.

  In the fall of 1862 she returned to Washington and then on to Warrington, Virginia, to serve with General Ambrose Burnside’s army, which was suffering from a typhoid fever epidemic. Still she was denied a commission for her services and was again working without pay.

  After the typhoid epidemic was under control, she proceeded to Frederick, Virginia, to help the wounded and sick soldiers. In September 1863, she went to Chattanooga, Tennessee, to assist with the 7,500 wounded survivors of the Battle of Chickamauga.

  After two years of service to the Union army she again applied for a commission and was again refused. However, this time she was appointed as a surgeon to the 52nd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which was part of the Army of the Cumberland.

  While with the 52nd Ohio Regiment she not only fulfilled her duties as a surgeon but also operated as a spy for General Sherman. She would go through the lines into Confederate territory as a doctor to assist the war-torn civilian population of the area. While on these medical missions she gathered information on Confederate troop movements and strengths and reported it to the Union army.

  On April 10, 1864, her service as a spy came to an end when she went deep into Confederate territory south of Gordon’s Mills, Tennessee, and was captured by a Confederate sentry.

  Dr. Walker was taken to Richmond, Virginia, for trial. Upon arrival in Richmond she was greeted with hostility. Confederate Captain B.J. Simmes summed up the feelings toward her when her wrote “We were all amused and disgusted too at sight of a thing that nothing but a debased and depraved Yankee nation could produce—A Female Doctor.”

  Dr. Walker was kept in Castle Thunder Prison in Richmond until August 12, 1864, when she was exchanged.

  After her release from prison, the U.S. Army approved her as a contract surgeon with the 52nd Ohio Regiment and paid her $432.36 for her service to the army from her assignment to the 52nd Ohio until her release from prison. However, they still refused to grant her a commission.

  After the war had ended she continued her work as a contract surgeon and again requested a commission in the U.S. Army. Her request for a commission was once again denied, but the government felt that she deserved some recognition for her service to the country. This recognition would be in the form of the nation’s highest medal.

  On November 11, 1865, President Andrew Johnson signed a bill which awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor to Dr. Mary Edwards Walker for her service to the Union. She cherished this honor for the rest of her life. She was the only woman in the Civil War to earn the Medal of Honor.

  In 1917, just two years before her death, the conditions for receiving the Congressional Medal of Honor were revised and resulted in the revocation of 910 previously awarded medals, one of which had been awarded to Dr. Walker. This injustice was later corrected in 1975 when President Jimmy Carter restored the Medal of Honor to her.

  Elizabeth Blackwell—Doctor

  Although Dr. Mary Walker was one of the earliest women to receive a medical degree in the United States, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell was the first.

  Elizabeth Blackwell was an Englishwoman born in 1821. In her quest to become a doctor, she applied to 25 different medical organizations before the Geneva Medical College in Geneva, New York, finally accepted her. In 1849, at the age of 28, Elizabeth Blackwell graduated from the medical college and became the first woman to receive a medical degree from an American medical school.

  Dr. Blackwell helped set up the New York Infirmary for Women and Children in 1857. Her ability to organize and set up organizations was an invaluable asset in her efforts to further the medical profession in the United States. This ability was shown time and time again, especially in the first few months of the Civil War.

  Dr. Blackwell was 40 years old when the Civil War began. She immediately recognized that the U.S. Army needed a system for distribution of its supplies, especially medical supplies, to the hospitals. In April 1861, she organized thousands of women from the Ne
w York area into a voluntary organization called Women’s Central Relief Association. Their purpose was to collect donations from people in the New York area, particularly medical supplies, and get them to the hospitals where they were needed.

  Dr. Blackwell also set up training courses for women to become nurses. The Woman’s Central Relief Association approved her training program by the end of April 1861, and she began supplying trained nurses to the New York hospitals. It was only three days after Secretary of War Cameron accepted Dorothea Dix’s offer of female nursing help that the Women’s Central Relief Association began its operations.

  The Women’s Central Relief Association at this point had no official status or authority. The government also had a need to get an official distribution organization into place to provide medical supplies to its hospitals as well as provide for the staffing and management of those hospitals. The problem was resolved in July 1861 when President Lincoln established the United States Sanitary Commission. The President appointed a clergyman, Reverend Henry Bellows, as head of the Sanitary Commission instead of a medical doctor.

  The Women’s Central Relief Association was quickly absorbed as a major part of the Sanitary Commission. The training of women nurses for the army continued and a need for an army superintendent of nurses became evident. Both Dr. Blackwell and Dorothea Dix were in consideration for this post. The army selected Dorothea Dix for the job.

  Dr. Blackwell continued her work throughout the Civil War. After the war, Elizabeth and her sister Emily founded the New York Medical College for Women. Eventually she became discouraged with the future of medicine in the United States, and in 1869 returned to England.