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during the American Civil War, 1861-1865.
Sarah Dysart
Kate Cummings
Kate kept a diary of her nursing experiences and published them in 1866,
in "A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee."
as a male nurse, going by the name of
Frank Thompson.
WANTED IMMEDIATELY –
A FEMALE NURSE, at the 2d Alabama Hospital. None but colored need apply. Apply at the Tobacco Factory, corner of Franklin and 21st streets.
created a shortage of nurses, as most of the male nurses volunteered to be soldiers.
Poet, Walt Whitman was the most well know male nurse of the Civil War.
June 10th, 1864, at White House Landing, Virginia.
"In the Depot Hospital we had an opportunityof witnessing the heroic and
charitable part the women of America were taking part in the war. No Matter
how ragged or dirty the sufferer, how hideous or revolting the wound, alive
in many instances with maggots, and in every form of putrification and
mortification; no matter what nation or country the patient belonged to;
woman's kind, ministering hand was there, to wash the festering wound,
to bathe the toil-warn feet, to comb the matted locks, to hold the cooling
draught to the parched lips, or to receive the last words that fell from them
e'er they were closed forever. And this without reward or hire, or expectation
of it, their only recompense the consiousness of obeying the mandate that
makes charity our duty, their only reward the knowledge that they are aiding to
maintain the government and preserve the integrity of the stars and stripes."
37th Wis. Volunteer Infantry
exhaustion shows
following a marathon of
real time surgeries
performed in the
Steven's House kitchen
under pure candlelight
"The experience
was very
valuable for us."
