Womans Work in the Civil War

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
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMaN'S
WORK IN THE CIVIL WAR ***

Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Cally Soukup and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
made using scans of public domain works from the University of
Michigan Digital Libraries.)

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