Womans Work in the Civil War

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Woman's Work in the Civil War, by

Linus Pierpont Brockett and Mary C. Vaughan This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Woman's Work in the Civil War A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience
Author: Linus Pierpont Brockett Mary C. Vaughan
Commentator: Henry W. Bellows
Release Date: June 18, 2007 [EBook #21853]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: The spelling and punctuation in the original is inconsistent. No changes have been made except where noted. A complete list is at the end of the text.
[Illustration: MISS CLARA H. BARTON. Eng. by John Sartain.]
[Illustration: WOMAN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR
"'SHOOT, IF YOU MUST, THIS OLD GRAY HEAD. BUT SPARE YOUR COUNTRY'S FLAG,' SHE SAID." Barbara Frietchie.
H. L. Stephens, Del. Samuel Sartain, Sc.]

WOMAN'S WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR:
A RECORD OF HEROISM, PATRIOTISM AND PATIENCE
BY
L. P. BROCKETT, M.D.,
AUTHOR OF "HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR," "PHILANTHROPIC RESULTS OF THE WAR," "OUR GREAT CAPTAINS," "LIFE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN," "THE CAMP, THE BATTLE FIELD, AND THE HOSPITAL," &C., &C.
AND
MRS. MARY C. VAUGHAN.
WITH AN INTRODUCTION, BY HENRY W. BELLOWS, D.D.,
President U. S. Sanitary Commission.
ILLUSTRATED WITH SIXTEEN STEEL ENGRAVINGS.
ZEIGLER, McCURDY & CO., PHILADELPHIA, PA.; CHICAGO, ILL.; CINCINNATI, OHIO; ST. LOUIS, MO.
R. H. CURRAN, 48 WINTER STREET, BOSTON, MASS.
1867.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by
L. P. BROCKETT,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of New York.
KING & BAIRD, PRINTERS, 607 Sansom Street, Philadelphia.
WESTCOTT & THOMSON, Stereotypers.

TO
THE LOYAL WOMEN OF AMERICA,
WHOSE PATRIOTIC CONTRIBUTIONS, TOILS AND SACRIFICES, ENABLED THEIR SISTERS, WHOSE HISTORY IS HERE RECORDED, TO MINISTER RELIEF AND CONSOLATION TO OUR WOUNDED AND SUFFERING HEROES;
AND WHO BY THEIR DEVOTION, THEIR LABORS, AND THEIR PATIENT ENDURANCE OF PRIVATION AND DISTRESS OF BODY AND SPIRIT, WHEN CALLED TO GIVE UP THEIR BELOVED ONES FOR THE
NATION'S DEFENSE,
HAVE WON FOR THEMSELVES ETERNAL HONOR, AND THE UNDYING REMEMBRANCE OF THE PATRIOTS OF ALL TIME,
WE DEDICATE THIS VOLUME.

PREFACE.
The preparation of this work, or rather the collection of material for it, was commenced in the autumn of 1863. While engaged in the compilation of a little book on "The Philanthropic Results of the War" for circulation abroad, in the summer of that year, the writer became so deeply impressed with the extraordinary sacrifices and devotion of loyal women, in the national cause, that he determined to make a record of them for the honor of his country. A voluminous correspondence then commenced and continued to the present time, soon demonstrated how general were the acts of patriotic devotion, and an extensive tour, undertaken the following summer, to obtain by personal observation and intercourse with these heroic women, a more clear and comprehensive idea of what they had done and were doing, only served to increase his admiration for their zeal, patience, and self-denying effort.
Meantime the war still continued, and the collisions between Grant and Lee, in the East, and Sherman and Johnston, in the South, the fierce campaign between Thomas and Hood in Tennessee, Sheridan's annihilating defeats of Early in the valley of the Shenandoah, and Wilson's magnificent expedition in Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, as well as the mixed naval and military victories at Mobile and Wilmington, were fruitful in wounds, sickness, and death. Never had the gentle and patient ministrations of woman been so needful as in the last year of the war; and never had they been so abundantly bestowed, and with such zeal and self-forgetfulness.
From Andersonville, and Millen, from Charleston, and Florence, from Salisbury, and Wilmington, from Belle Isle, and Libby Prison, came also, in these later months of the war, thousands of our bravest and noblest heroes, captured by the rebels, the feeble remnant of the tens of thousands imprisoned there, a majority of whom had perished of cold, nakedness, starvation, and disease, in those charnel houses, victims of the fiendish malignity of the rebel leaders. These poor fellows, starved to the last degree of emaciation, crippled and dying from frost and gangrene, many of them idiotic from their sufferings, or with the fierce fever of typhus, more deadly than sword or minié bullet, raging in their veins, were brought to Annapolis and to Wilmington, and unmindful of the deadly infection, gentle and tender women ministered to them as faithfully and lovingly, as if they were their own brothers. Ever and anon, in these works of mercy, one of these fair ministrants died a martyr