Nursing and women's roles during the American Civil War

Nursing & Women's Roles Pre-and-Post Civil War

The student focusing on 19th century history in the United States in most cases studies the Civil War and the causes that led to the war. But there are a number of very important aspects to 19th century American history that relate to women's roles, including nursing and volunteering to help the war wounded and others in need of care. This paper delves into the role nurses played in the Civil War (both Caucasian and Black nurses), the way in which the Civil War changed the woman's work roles, the role women (both Black and Caucasian) played before, during, and after the war, and the terrible injustices thrust on women of color in a number of instances throughout the 19th century.

The Woman's role in America prior to the Civil War

"A woman's work is never done," is an old maxim but it has never become out of date; indeed, because it has more than a ring of truth to it, it has been used often in the 217 years since Martha Moore Ballard penned it in her journal one November night around midnight in 1795 (Cott, 1997, p. 19). Author Nancy Cott uses Ballard's life and times -- a resident of Augusta, Maine -- as an example of the productivity and altruism that was typical of many women whose vocation was as a "domestic manufacturer" on a working farm (Cott, 19).

To wit, Ballard "…baked, pickled and preserved, spun and sewed, made soap and dipped candles" and in addition to all that, Ballard was a "trusted healer and midwife"; she delivered "…more than a thousand babies" as well (Cott, 19). This was not an "atypical" women in the waning days of the late 18th century, Cott explains.

If one is looking for any changes in a woman's role between 1780 and 1835, Cott writes, there were some, but basically women were considered "…adjunct and secondary to men in economic life" (20). Women were noted for their "industry" but men were "providing"; what sense would it have made for a woman to have economic ambitions, given that there were "legal obstacles in the way of women's entrepreneurship"? (Cott, 21).

In Mary Tucker's diary (1802) she said marriage could prove to be "…a galling chain" for those unfortunate women who "married from proper motives" but did not anticipate the "bondage…" (Cott, 77). Catherine Sedgwick (1802) had pity for her sister Frances, who had married and now must "accede to her husband's disastrous financial decisions," Cott reports on page 77. Sedgwick wrote that her sister wasn't given the right to object or consent to her husband's investments and spending, but she was stuck in a place where "…obedience to his wish" was all she could muster (Cott, 77). Sedgwick writes: "Poor Frances! My heart bleeds for her, when I think to what legal subordination persisted, in combination with romantic love ideals that stressed personal attraction and emotional motivation for both partners…" (Cott, 77-78).

Sedgwick presents in her diary post that -- in the context of her sister's dilemma -- there is an "overwhelming irony" faced by women: they have the right to "choose their bondage" (Cott, 78). Iconic philosopher, author and journalist Alexis de Tocqueville visited the United States and studied the social dynamics carefully in the early portion of the 19th century. His take on women's position in relationships is poignant if -- as author Cott contends -- it is not exactly accurate.

Tocqueville wrote that a woman "…voluntarily and freely enters upon this engagement" in full knowledge of her destiny. "She has learned by the use of her independence to surrender it without a struggle and without a murmur when the time comes for making the sacrifice" (Cott quoting Tocqueville, 78). The part of that quote that Cott didn't fully embrace was the supposed independence that a woman had prior to marriage; it just wasn't true, in many cases, that unmarried young women had independence.

Still, Cott goes on to recount the changes in women's roles and the perceptions that the outside world (including males) had about women. By the year 1830, women were not seen so much as "inferior" as they were "different," Cott emphasizes (197). In fact there is a "woman's sphere" in the literature relating to the 19th century; the author breaks the "woman's sphere" down into three parts. The first, roughly between 1820 and 1850, viewed women as "…victims, or prisoners, of an ideology of domesticity that was imposed on them" (197). The second sphere viewed women in a more refined way, observing that "…women made use of the ideology of domesticity for their own purposes" including the chance to be educated, to gain some influence in the society and the community, and even to "…express hostility to men" (Cott, 197).

The third perceives sphere for women was by way of seeing that women were creating a "subculture…that formed a source of strength and identity and afforded supportive sisterly relations" (Cott, 197). The impetus for this third sphere was two-fold: a) women's motives were more progressive and specific in terms of what they wished to become; and b) women were responding forcefully to the "imposition of men's or 'society's wishes" (Cott, 197).

Meanwhile, on a more practical side of the early 19th century, the advice offered to women in The Family Nurse by abolitionist, Indian rights advocate and woman's rights activist Lydia Child is as entertaining today as it was pragmatic in 1837, when the book was published. "Be not afraid of fatigue," Child suggested on page 6. And those "troubled with cold feet" should "dip their feet in cold water, as soon as they are out of bed, all the year round" (Child, 6). The dipping should be done very quickly, then the feet should be "…rubbed with a coarse cloth, or brush, till they glow" (Child, 6).

On page 9 Child recommends that patients suffering from fever be sponged with a solution consisting of a teaspoon of pearl ask, dissolved in a pint of "lukewarm water" and wiped off with a sponge that has been dipped in "warm vinegar and water." That seems very straight forward and proper. But after the vinegar treatment, Child suggests very weak patients with fever will benefit "…by being washed in warm white rum" (9).

While that last advice may seem a bit bizarre by today's standards, some of Child's recommendations border on the blatantly obvious: "If stockings and shoes get wet, change them. It is a mistaken idea that it is healthy to dry them on" (7). Another nurse-related suggestion, which rings true today: "The first and most important duty of the nurse is to follow scrupulously and exactly the directions of the physician… he must be trusted entirely" (Child, 9). Interestingly Child leaves no stone unturned in her scrupulous attention to detail. When someone is ill, it is important to "step lightly and gently" and avoid "creaking shoes" or "rustling garments" and most certainly prevent doors from banging. Certainly the nurses and women tending to the sick in 1837 did not have "3-in-1" oil or WD-40, but they understood how annoying a squeaky door can be; hence on page 10 Child suggests having "hinges and locks oiled."

Why 19th Century Women -- in Many Instances -- were Revered

Barbara Welter presents narrative in the book Locating American Studies: The Evolution of a Discipline that a 19th century woman was judged by four "cardinal virtues" -- "piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity" (Welter, 1999, p. 44). The source of the woman's strength was religion and piety, and in fact when a woman has those "undefined longings" that sweep through the mind and body of "even the most pious young girl" religion acts as a kind of "tranquilizer" for those desires (Welter, 45). The rule of thumb for young women coming of age was: "…it was better to pray than to think" (Welter, 45).

Given the above-mentioned description of what a woman's role was -- her "proper sphere" was her home where she could practice her religion and eschew "intellectual pursuits" -- it is clear why women were discouraged from pursuing educational advancement. "Women were warned not to let their literary or intellectual pursuits take them away from God" (Welter, 46). In essence, the point made in women's publications like The Ladies' Repository, Young Ladies' Literary and Missionary Report, The Young Lady's Friend, Girlhood and Womanhood and The Excellency of the Female Character, was that religion and the obsession with reading the Bible would keep women from straying into carnal thoughts or hopes of becoming educated about the secular world.

On page 46, Welter explains that when a woman in the early 19th century was less than pure (one assumes the author alludes to virginity and to eschewing sensual involvement of any kind) she was "no woman at all, but a member of some lower order." A women even thinking about her loss of purity "…brought tears" and to be found "guilty of such a crime" as an impure act "…brought madness or death," according to the women's magazines during that era (Welter, 46). Thomas Branagan wrote in The Excellency of the Female Character Vindicated that men would "sin and sin again" because they could not help themselves (quoted by Welter, 47). But a woman, Branagan asserted, was "stronger and purer" and had the resolve to resist a man's desire to "…take liberties incompatible with her delicacy" (Welter, 47).

However, if a woman should acquiesce to a man's attempts to engage in sexual activities, Branagan asserted in his book, "You will be left in silent sadness to bewail your credulity, imbecility, duplicity, and premature prostitution" (Welter, 47). The advice given to women in the early 19th century, as presented by Welter on page 62, clearly appears to the 21st century reader as propaganda designed to keep women in subservient situations vis-a-vis their future husbands.

To wit, pastor Samuel Miller's sermon on women listed the duties females are obliged to perform for the husband: a) be a "counselor and friend" to the husband; b) "lighten his cares" on a daily basis; c) "soothe his sorrows"; d) "augment his joys"; e) watch over "his interests" like a "guardian angel"; f) warn him "against danger"; g) comfort him when there are "trials" in his life; and h) "…by her pious, assiduous and attractive deportment, constantly endeavor to render him a more virtuous, more useful, more honorable and more happy" individual (Welter, 62).

The Woman's role in the American Family in the 19th century

Author Carl Degler points out that after the Civil War, for most women their tasks were still domestic. "The primary role of the wife was the care of children and the maintenance of the home" (Degler, 1980, p. 8). The woman did in fact enjoy a greater degree of "influence and autonomy within the family" than the woman of the house did in the 17th century. Still, her role was homemaker albeit she was perceived by society "and [by] herself" as the "moral superior of the husband" (Degler, 8). Those women who were offered opportunities outside the home -- to be detailed later in this paper -- either had special nurses training or were widowed by the bloody war, which took the lives of more than 600,000 people.

Degler presents an example of how a woman really needed permission from her husband to go to work outside the house. Charlena Anderson needed the approval of her husband to leave their home and take a job while he was studying in Germany (Degler, 386). He wrote back that it would be "grand" for her to get a position in a "Normal School" to teach German to English-speaking students. But he added, it would be okay "…even if you did not earn much the first year"; he added that his main worry about his wife leaving the house to work related to the fact that work outside the home "…might impair her health" (Degler, 386).

She replied that it would only be a temporary position, hence he needn't worry that she would want to do this on an ongoing basis; but she mentioned that earning money to help him pay for his expenses while he was studying surely is a good thing. "You need not feel that you are a burden to all of us [by which she meant her parents, for she had no children…] & #8230; We had as soon loan our money to you as to anyone" (Degler, 386).

As an addendum to her note, she mentioned that "…I know I shall get mine again with good interest, won't I? You may say I have loaned you nothing, very true" (Degler, 386). It's not possible to tell if Charlena was making a little in-house joke when she said she had no fear of being paid back, but it could be construed that she was hoping for -- planning for -- some romance when he returned from Germany, which would serve as "good interest" for his wife. In any event, when he returned to the United States Charlena gave up her job and came home.

Degler (388) points to an incident that quite thoroughly explains and portrays the ongoing chauvinistic attitude among the male population just prior to the Civil War. In 1854, writer / editor / publisher Horace Greeley had been hiring women as typesetters in his printing office. But the Typographical Union "attacked him" for hiring women in what had traditionally been a man's job. Greely's rebuttal to those union attacks is a mix of chauvinism and humor.

"Marry them," he wrote, "provide good homes, and earn means of living comfortably, and we'll warrant them never to annoy you thereafter by insisting on spending their days at the printing office setting type" (Degler, 388). As for women who wished for independence from their parents, marriage was "an escape" from the controlling parents. But as Degler points on page 388, the husband might well turn out to be "as great a tyrant as a father" albeit the husband-tyrant was chosen by the woman and the parents she was stuck with through no choosing of her own.

Pulitzer-Prize winner James M. McPherson's book, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, goes into great detail about all the conditions in the South and the North that led to war, but he also discusses wages, trades, and how women were treated who were able to work outside the home in the private sector in the 1840s (most women were expected to stay home and do domestic chores).

The wages of male artisans had been quite high in the mid-1800s, but they plunged in certain occupations due to the "…introduction of new methods or new machines" that could do the work more efficiently and for less money (McPherson, 2003, p. 22). So instead of having to pay artisans what then was considered decent wages, employers hired "green hands" (also called "slop workers") -- usually women and sometimes children too -- perform "separate parts of a sequential process previously done entirely by skilled hands" (McPherson, 22). These tasks were performed in the genres of shoemakers, weavers, tailors, printers and cabinetmakers, McPherson explains (23).

Workers in that pre-war era that were "…at the bottom of the scale, especially women, children and recent immigrants, labored long hours in sweatshops or airless factories for a pittance"; the only way they could actually earn a livable wage was it "…other members of their families also worked" (McPherson, 23).

Black Women Helped the War as Nurses, Recruiters, and Laborers

Author Lisa Tendrich Frank references the fact that by the war's end some two hundred and sixteen thousand African-American men had served in the Union army and navy. Many of those men -- mainly freed men -- had left wives at home to manage the household. The emotional pains those Black women experienced were greatly heightened by the thirty-seven thousand Black Union soldiers who were killed in the war. Meanwhile, while the war was underway, many of the Black wives served as "unofficial recruiters for the Union army" (Frank, 2008, p. 11).

Notwithstanding the fact that they were not paid for their services, Harriet Jacobs and Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin helped to recruit troops for the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth regiment, Frank explains (11). One Black woman who was paid to recruit for the war was Mary Ann Shadd Cary, who, in 1864, was hired by Indiana Governor Levi P. Morton to raise an entire Black regiment. Other freed Black women worked for the Union army as "…laborers, servants and laundresses… nurses, cooks, seamstresses, teachers and relief workers" (Frank, 11). These Black women, even though they were paid less than Black men and white women to perform duties for the North, the Black women "…nursed wounded soldiers, raises money and supplies to aid troops" (Frank, 12).

The federal government did not treat the Black women in a just way, Frank explains, and moreover the North "…failed to meet their economic obligations"; this failure was not acceptable to many Black women so they filed "formal applications to be paid for the work that they did," Frank continues (12). Though the petitions did not produce the hoped-for results, the Black women serving had a goal that was far more poignant that receiving fair pay: they labored "…under the knowledge that their hard work might secure the freedom of the nation's African-Americans" (Frank, 12). As to Black nurses, the Union army did not begin hiring Black nurses until January 16, 1864, Frank points out; still, even as hired nurses, there were many Black women that were assigned to "menial hospital tasks" like cooking meals, cleaning, and doing the laundry (12).

There were "many" Black women that served as "spies and scouts" for the North; these "courageous women passed Confederate secrets on to Union soldiers, informing them of maneuvers, troop numbers" -- and some Black women actually served as soldiers in the Union army albeit they had to "hide their sex" (Frank, 12). Virginian Maria Lewis served as a soldier in the Eighth New York Calvary, concealing the fact that she was female.

Black women whose husbands were fighting for the North were sometimes militant in their demand for fair treatment. For example, in the summer of 1864, a number of Black women were on a train bound for Camp William Penn, where they has been assigned to provide care for wounded Black soldiers. However, they were refused seats on the train. But they made a bold protest over this rude treatment and as a result there were changes in fairness policies in many instances where Blacks were clearly participating in the war effort, Frank explains on page 13.

As evidence of some of these changes in social policy, in 1864, the Black widow of a Black soldier killed in the war had a white conductor arrested in New York after the conductor assaulted her, forcing her off the streetcar (Frank, 13).

Black Nurses and Yellow Fever in Philadelphia

In the book The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, author Annette Gordon-Reed explains that Thomas Jefferson's decision to leave Philadelphia and move to the country in 1793 may have saved his life. That is because five months after Jefferson left Philadelphia, people were coming down with "…a mysterious illness that caused severe headaches and backaches, along with a high fever" (Gordon-Reed, 2009, p. 493). After a few days these victims' skin turned yellow, and "…they began to vomit blood so dark it looked black," Gordon-Reed explained (493).

This was the beginning of a plague of yellow fever in Philadelphia, that took an estimated five thousand lives; indeed, from August to November, 1793, up to fifteen percent of the entire population of Philadelphia "perished" and another 20,000 (including "most" government officials and leaders) "simply fled" (Gordon-Reed, 493). This epidemic hit the "black community hard in a number of ways," the author explained (494); some Black people stayed as volunteers, but "Many were conscripted and prevented from leaving so that they could dig graves and attend the sick." Many Blacks who had stayed behind "caught the disease and died"; unfortunately for those Black volunteers who stayed the only way they were repaid for their courageous work was through innuendo and slander from the Caucasian community.

Those Black volunteers were charged with "either robbing" their sick patients" or "overcharging them for services" (Gordon-Reed, 494). These charges were denied and a pamphlet was published by Richard Allen and Absolom Jones (founders of the African Methodist Episcopal Church) that "detailed the contributions of Blacks" to the relief efforts, Gordon-Reed explains (494).

Author Dorceta Taylor takes the story a bit further in her book The Environment and the People in American Cities, 1600-1900: Disorder, Inequality, and Social Change. It was believed at the time that Blacks somehow were immune to the yellow fever, and Dr. Benjamin Rush, a leader in the Black community in Philadelphia, convinced Jones and Allen, and the mayor, that leaving Blacks behind to aid in the care of those ill was a good idea.

Taylor writes that even black prisoners were released to help the relief effort; "two-thirds" of the freed blacks volunteered to be nurses and all-told, about "three hundred blacks participated…" (Taylor, 2009, p. 71). For every white nurse that stayed behind, Taylor goes on, there were "twenty black nurses" and those Black "nurses" dug graves and buried the dead (71). Making matters worse for the Blacks involved in the relief work, they were "subjected to the fear and hostility of the whites whom they tried to help" (Taylor, 72).

When Blacks died from the yellow fever, whites claimed it wasn't the yellow fever but something else that killed them. "Hence doctors helped perpetuate the myth that blacks were immune to the disease," Taylor asserts; and when Black nurses fell ill from yellow fever while caring for white patients that suffered from yellow fever, "…they were chased from the homes in which they worked" (72).

Did hospital work change lives following the Civil War?

In some cases, pointed out by writers covering the topic, individuals that volunteered to work in the hospitals during the Civil War did experience new opportunities following the war. In other instances recorded by writers, there were not many opportunities for work in the healthcare field after the war. But there were other fields of service women could get involved with, Jane Schultz relates. The post-war work situation was an interesting dynamic and it did in many instances change the way women were seen in a public role.

For example, author Jane Schultz makes clear in her book Women at the Front: Hospital Workers in Civil War America that individuals involved in hospital volunteerism experienced dramatic changes in their lives when the war ended. The middle class Caucasian hospital worker (nurse, orderly, and other volunteers) believed that "…the confidence government had bestowed in them by allowing, however reluctantly," to become involved, would continue to give them additional opportunities. For those hospital nurses and other volunteers, once the war was ended they believed that they now had a chance to "build on the advocacy the war had served up to them" (Schultz, 2004, p. 146).

After all, those "hardened veterans" who had worked long hours in hospitals and had been witness to the ghastly specter of serious injuries, and who had watched men die, believed they would be offered some kind of a "partnership" in a military activity of some kind after the war (Schultz, 146). Their reasoning was simple: we gave as much as we could give to the war effort, and now we expect in some form an "honored place in the polity" and an opportunity to do other related work in the public sector. It wasn't to work out quite that way, Schultz explains.

In fact there was a "fury of disapproval" from the public as regards females working in field of healthcare and medicine, Schultz reports. Some historians have claimed that the war acted like a "dynamo in speeding [women's] entry" into the workplace outside the home, and that opportunities for women "gradually increased throughout the nineteenth century" (Schultz, 147). However, Schultz challenges that historical reflection, and believes that the considerable experiences that women had during the Civil War "…did not necessarily translate into workplace achievement" (147). For some of the "elite" women (those who had obtained the education to become doctors and nurses) in the North, they did find "satisfying work after the war" (Schultz, 147).

But for the roughly two-thirds of relief workers that were not considered "elite" -- who believed their unselfish service to the North should give them "the potential to lay claim to a larger share of work outside the home" -- many did not seek training as nurses or doctors in the postwar period (Schultz, 147). On page 148 Schultz flatly states that because the men fighting the war were "subjected to bullets and exposure" and because the concept of "manliness, amply demonstrated during the war, precluded veterans from the language of domestic comfort" they fully expected to return to their roles "as breadwinners and protectors of women and children."

In other words, the men would go back to their traditional roles as patriarchs and the men would expect that women would be subservient again, now that their work in hospitals and in other position that helped with the war effort. The belief that the women all would go back to strictly domestic matters had "other ideological implications," however, Schultz explains, turning the page somewhat from her earlier narrative. In fact many relief workers "…moved into teaching and social service" after the war -- which were positions that had powerful domestic themes albeit not in the healthcare or medical field. Schultz quotes from the book by Linus Brockett and Mary Vaughn (Woman's work in the Civil War); these two authors believed that the war had not "altered women's domestic bent" at all.

Women volunteers and relief workers that had been paid were "heroines," according to Brockett and Vaughn, who in the aftermath of the war could participate in a "higher and holier future" by "delivering vagrant and wayward childhood from the paths of ruin" (Schultz, 148). But did many women actually participate in these tasks? They were clearly ready, the authors state, and they were prepared to work with educational needs, help for the "downtrodden" and help for "the fallen sisterhood" along with improving hospitals (Schultz, paraphrasing Brockett and Vaughn).

Catholic Nuns as Civil War Nurses -- Primary Sources

An essay by Barbra Mann Wall recounts the primary source missives to and from nurse-sisters as they were boarding -- and while on board -- hospital ships during the Peninsula Campaign of the Civil War. Mother St. John Fournier who was the superior for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Philadelphia, was aware that while tending to wounded soldiers aboard a hospital ship, the nuns under her supervision would not have full access to mass. Hence, on April 19, 1862, she penned the following orders:

"Make your medication in the morning after your prayers and be not troubled if you can say no other prayers of the community, not even if you are deprived of mass on Sundays" (Wall, 2007, p. 387).

Another primary source from that essay includes the words of Dr. Henry Hollingsworth Smith, who was the principal surgeon for the Pennsylvania Volunteers. He knew the Sisters of St. Joseph, and was "…aware of their reputation as good nurses," Wall explained. He wrote to Mother St. John, using third person in explaining why only the nuns from St. Joseph would be hired to work with injured and ill soldiers.

"Whilst beset by applicants, every female nurse has been refused, Dr. smith being unwilling to trust any but his old friends the Sisters of St. Joseph" (Wall). On board that hospital ship (and on others) were "male and female nurses" from "middle and upper classes" who administered medications and served food to the wounded patients. Also on board the hospital ships were "African-American women and white working-class women"; their tasks included "cooking, washing, and other physical labors in the care of the sick and wounded" (Wall).

Examples of women engaged in role-changing post-war humanitarian work

There were examples of outstanding post-war services performed by women, which does directly relate to the way roles changed because of and following the Civil War. Indeed, women like Maria Mann, Horace Mann's niece, a teacher, politician, reform activist and attorney, who spent 1863 working in a freedmen's camp in Arkansas and after the war went to Washington to help in an orphanage (Schultz, 148). This work by Maria Mann would qualify for what Schultz termed efforts by "elite women" -- and Katharine Prescott Wormeley would also fall into the category of an "elite women" in her post-war efforts to help others.

Wormeley, a native of England who was wealthy (she had homes in New York, Boston, and Newport, Rhode Island), was not sitting on the sidelines during the war. She in fact had mobilized the dependents of Northern soldiers and together they sewed together military clothing (Schultz, 148). More than that, Wormeley directed female staff at a war hospital in Rhode Island and helped organized the ferrying of boatloads of wounded soldiers to safety during the Peninsula campaign, Schultz continues. And after the war, she settled into another role: she became an author, she translated French classics into English (books by Daudet, Moliere and Balzac) and in 1879 she founded the "Newport Charity Organization Society" (Schultz, 148). Wormeley also founded an industrial training school for "working-class girls" (in 1887) and later (1889) she published a memoir based on her war experiences (Schultz, 148).

Meanwhile Cornelia Hancock, a Quaker from New Jersey, had worked for 22 months straight in the Union Army hospital in City Point for the 2nd Corps in 1865, when she wrote a letter to her sister: "The last lot of sick I hope ever to see" had just arrived at the hospital on May 3, 1865 (Schultz, 149). Weary from the relief work, Hancock went home; but because she was "Convinced, like other middle-class whites that much humanitarian work remained to be done," she relocated to South Carolina (with a Quaker group) and helped to establish the Laing School in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina (Schultz, 149). Hancock proceeded to teach former slaves for ten years and was later part of the founding of children's aid societies in Pennsylvania, Schultz explained on page 149.

The post-war experiences of the elite women in the North for the most part involved charity work, Schultz goes on. These women were not looking for a payday; but middle class women and war widows did need to seek wages, so their opportunities were far less in terms of a role that would provide them with their personal and household needs.

Women had to qualify to become war nurses and staff in some cases

Dorothea Dix was renowned as a reformer of prisons and asylums, but when the Civil War was launched, she became involved in "hastily organized" military hospitals. She was soon appointed to be the "Superintendent of Female Nurses" by the Secretary of the War Department, Cameron, in 1861 (Brockett, et al., 1867, p. 101). It is interesting to note that Dix was in charge of selecting appropriate nursing (and "matrons" -- volunteers that had no formal training) from applications she reviewed. She was very selective and according to Brockett, "…many were rejected" due to the rigid scrutiny that Dix applied to her criteria for hiring.

In her role as superintendent of nurses for the war effort she rigidly insisted that: a) applicants be "mature in years"; b) "plain almost to homeliness in dress"; c) "by no means liberally endowed with personal attractions" (in other words, beautiful and/or sensually attractive women need not apply); d) good health and "unexceptionable moral character were always insisted on" (Brockett, 101). Many youthful applicants were rejected, simply because they were young, and others that were accepted, presumably older and homely, were "proved" to be "quite unfit for the position, and a disgrace to their sex" (Brockett, 102).

But don't blame Ms. Dix, Brockett writes, because in certain cases Dix was "deceived by false testimonials, by a specious appearance, or by applicants who, innocent at the time, were not proof against the temptations and allurements of a position which all must admit to be peculiarly exposed and unsafe" (102). What that really means is unclear (it was written in 1867), but one speculative thought is that the authors were alluding to the temptations a woman might have if she is attracted to a wounded soldier and pays more attention than her healthcare duties allowed.

Nurse Nancy Hill found out first hand about the stern, seemingly unreasonably strict policies of Dorothea Dix. Hill was born and educated in the Boston area. Her great-grandmother had left her home during the Revolutionary War and provided nursing care to wounded soldiers for both the British and Patriot troops. Her great-grandfathers -- four of them -- had fought in the Battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill (Deckert, 2006, p. 2). Clearly this was a woman with an impressive early American pedigree.

In 1863, as the Civil War was raging, Hill decided to volunteer to work at the Armory Square hospital, the largest Civil War hospital at that time. It was located on the National Mall and had 1,000 beds along with "overflow tents" (Deckert, 2).

On Hill's first day at work she met Dix, the superintendent of female nurses for the Union (as was earlier noted in this paper). Dix "…considered [Hill] unqualified and ordered her to go home," Deckert explains on page 2. However, the head surgeon of the Armory Square Hospital intervened with the situation and told Hill (and other volunteer nurses that had been sent away by Dix) to stay at their posts.

Hill's remembrance of that meeting with Dix included what Dix said to her as she arrived. "My dear, don't unpack your trunk. I shall send you home tomorrow. I intend to remove every one of the volunteer nurses soon as the vacancies can be filled" (Deckert, 6). Hill said she did not know who this woman was but the woman "…supposed I did." She went to Dr. Bliss' office and told him what this "strange lady" had said. "Describe her, please," Dr. Bliss said. "She was a tall and stately lady over fifty years of age, rather plain looking with a kind face…elegantly dressed in black silk with lovely white lace around the neck and sleeves and pretty kid gloves" (Deckert, 6).

"Why, that is Miss Dix," Dr. Bliss replied. "We are ahead of her again. Your appointment has just been returned signed by the Surgeon General."

It was a wise decision to allow Hill to remain at the hospital. In early May of 1864, following the "Battle of the Wilderness," two hundred and fifty wounded Union soldiers were brought to the Armory Square Hospital. However, there was a paperwork error and the hospital had not received the formal paperwork for these wounded soldiers so the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, would not let them be brought into the hospital (Deckert, 1). Apparently Stanton suspected the soldiers were deserters, Deckert writes.

In any event, Hill, who had been assigned to Ward F. In the hospital by Dr. Bliss, saw the need and the injuries and "…opened the gates and convinced the guards to turn their backs so they would not be party to her actions" (Deckert, 1). She helped the 250 wounded Union troops into beds, dressed their wounds, and made sure they were well cared for. Here was a Caucasian woman of high social standing and a rich pedigree going against the Secretary of War to make sure those in pain and in need of medical care were treated properly.

Later in May Hill learned that there were severely wounded Union soldiers near Fredericksburg and she was given a pass to the front lines where she gave medical help to as many men as she could. In that bloody battle, General Grant had 118,000 at the beginning of the battle of Fredericksburg but he lost 38,000 (they were either dead, wounded, or missing); Hill tended those that were still alive in the field (Deckert, 2). Dr. Bill was very impressed with Hill's work and recommended that she become a doctor; in 1874 Hill received her medical degree from the University of Michigan, among the first schools to graduate women in medicine.

In conclusion, the workload that nurses, assistants, and other relief workers faced in administering to wounded soldiers during the Civil War were enormous -- and often gruesome and heartbreaking as well. But nurses, Caucasian and Black, and others volunteering performed vital tasks in hideous conditions, and this paper identifies some of those courageous people and the work they did. Also, this paper pointed out the roles that women had in the 19th century, before, during, and after the Civil War. Besides the action on the battlefields, there are many important stories to be told when it comes to the Civil War; and while there are myriad more stories that have gone untold, this paper provided some of the available narrative which is both historically important and a true reflection of the American spirit.