Mary Ann Bickerdyke, also known as Mother Bickerdyke, was a hospital administrator for Union soldiers during the American Civil War and a lifelong advocate for veterans. She was responsible for establishing 300 field hospitals during the war and served as a lawyer assisting veterans and their families with obtaining pensions after the war.
Mary Ashton Livermore was an American journalist, abolitionist, and advocate of women's rights. Her printed volumes included: Thirty Years Too Late, first published in 1847 as a prize temperance tale, and republished in 1878; Pen Pictures; or, Sketches from Domestic Life; What Shall We Do with Our Daughters? Superfluous Women, and Other Lectures; and My Story of the War. A Woman's Narrative of Four Years' Personal Experience as Nurse in the Union Army, and in Relief Work at Home, in Hospitals, Camps and at the Front during the War of the Rebellion. She wrote a sketch of the sculptor Anne Whitney for Women of the Day and delivered the historical address for the Centennial Celebration of the First Settlement of the Northwestern States in Marietta, Ohio on July 15, 1788.
The United States Sanitary Commission (USSC) was a private relief agency created by federal legislation on June 18, 1861, to support sick and wounded soldiers of the United States Army during the American Civil War. It operated across the North, raised an estimated $25 million in Civil War era revenue and in-kind contributions to support the cause, and enlisted thousands of volunteers. The president was Henry Whitney Bellows, and Frederick Law Olmsted acted as executive secretary. It was modeled on the British Sanitary Commission, set up during the Crimean War (1853–1856), and from the British parliamentary report published after the Indian Rebellion of 1857.
USS Red Rover was a 650-ton Confederate States of America steamer that the United States Navy captured. After refitting the vessel, the Union used it as a hospital ship during the American Civil War.
The United States Christian Commission (USCC) was an organization that furnished supplies, medical services, and religious literature to Union troops during the American Civil War. It combined religious support with social services and recreational activities. It supplied Protestant chaplains and social workers and collaborated with the U.S. Sanitary Commission in providing medical services.
During the American Civil War, Indianapolis, the state capital of Indiana, was a major base of supplies for the Union. Governor Oliver P. Morton, a major supporter of President Abraham Lincoln, quickly made Indianapolis a gathering place to organize and train troops for the Union army. The city became a major railroad hub for troop transport to Confederate lands, and therefore had military importance. Twenty-four military camps were established in the vicinity of Indianapolis. Camp Morton, the initial mustering ground to organize and train the state's Union volunteers in 1861, was designated as a major prisoner-of-war camp for captured Confederate soldiers in 1862. In addition to military camps, a state-owned arsenal was established in the city in 1861, and a federal arsenal in 1862. A Soldiers' Home and a Ladies' Home were established in Indianapolis to house and feed Union soldiers and their families as they passed through the city. Indianapolis residents also supported the Union cause by providing soldiers with food, clothing, equipment, and supplies, despite rising prices and wartime hardships, such as food and clothing shortages. Local doctors aided the sick, some area women provided nursing care, and Indianapolis City Hospital tended to wounded soldiers. Indianapolis sent an estimated 4,000 men into military service; an estimated 700 died during the war. Indianapolis's Crown Hill National Cemetery was established as one of two national military cemeteries established in Indiana in 1866.
The word "nurse" originally came from the Latin word "nutrire", meaning to suckle, referring to a wet-nurse; only in the late 16th century did it attain its modern meaning of a person who cares for the infirm.
During the American Civil War, sexual behavior, gender roles, and attitudes were affected by the conflict, especially by the absence of menfolk at home and the emergence of new roles for women such as nursing. The advent of photography and easier media distribution, for example, allowed for greater access to sexual material for the common soldier.
The state of medical knowledge at the time of the Civil War was quite limited by 21st century standards. Doctors did not understand germs, and did little to prevent infection. It was a time before antiseptics, and a time when there was no attempt to maintain sterility during surgery. No antibiotics were available, and minor wounds could easily become infected, and hence fatal. While the typical soldier was at risk of being hit by rifle or artillery fire, he faced an even greater risk of dying from disease.
The Romanian Red Cross, also known as the National Society of Red Cross from Romania, is a volunteer-led, humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance, disaster relief and education inside Romania. It is the designated national affiliate of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.
Ira Roe Foster was a teacher, medical doctor, attorney, soldier, businessman, and politician from South Carolina. During the 1840s, Foster served as brigadier general in the Georgia Militia.
The history of medicine in the United States encompasses a variety of approaches to health care in the United States spanning from colonial days to the present. These interpretations of medicine vary from early folk remedies that fell under various different medical systems to the increasingly standardized and professional managed care of modern biomedicine.
The history of nursing in the United States focuses on the professionalization of Nursing in the United States since the Civil War.
Emily Elizabeth Parsons was an American Civil War nurse, hospital administrator, and founder of Mount Auburn Hospital in Massachusetts. Her posthumous memoir, Fearless Purpose: Memoir of Emily Elizabeth Parsons, gives a rare glimpse of the American Civil War from a nurse's perspective as she describes her work tending to Union soldiers and managing the nursing staff at Benton Barracks Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri.
Adaline Weston Couzins was a British-born American civil servant, a suffragist, and a Civil War nurse who worked for the Ladies' Union Aid Society of St. Louis. She spent most of her career as a nurse during the Civil War on hospital ships that tended to Union and Confederate soldiers all along the Mississippi River.
Anna L. Clapp (1814–1889) was the only president of the St. Louis Ladies' Union Aid Society and helped supply for those wounded during the American Civil War. She advocated for women to step outside of their homes and join the efforts to help during the war. She made medical supplies available for injured soldiers and provided shelter for refugees of all color as well. Even when the war was over, she continued to make a difference by creating homes for women and orphans. She was president of the Western Female Guardian Home and the director of the St. Louis Protestant Orphan Asylum.
St. Louis Ladies' Union Aid Society was formed on August 2, 1861. During the American Civil War, ladies' aid societies formed across the country to provide medical services and supplies to soldiers. In St. Louis, they partnered with the Western Sanitary Commission in bringing aid to Union soldiers across the state.
Elizabeth George, nicknamed "Mother George" by the Union army soldiers under her care, served the final two-and-a-half years of her life as a volunteer nurse in the South during the American Civil War. Initially discouraged from serving because of her age and the harsh conditions of wartime service, the fifty-four-year-old widow left her Fort Wayne, Indiana, home in February 1863 and died in May 1865 of typhoid fever, which she contracted while nursing soldiers and civilians at Wilmington, North Carolina, a month after the end of the war. George was buried with full military honors at Lindenwood Cemetery in Fort Wayne, Indiana; a monument erected near her gravesite pays tribute to her wartime service.
Elizabeth Harris served as a United States Sanitary Commission agent, army nurse, and newspaper correspondent during the American Civil War. She was active in the Eastern Theater of the American Civil War until September 1863, when she went to Tennessee for several months before returning to the east. After the war, she was active in national reform causes.
New England Soldiers' Relief Association was an organization formed during the American Civil War with the purpose, "To aid and care for all sick and wounded soldiers passing through the City of New York on their way to or from the War." It was established by Sons of New England resident in the City of New York, through the parents organization, New England Society of New York. The formal organization of the Association was completed April 3, 1862, and on April 8, the building No. 194 Broadway was opened to the reception of beneficiaries, serving as a home and a hospital. The Association closed on September 1, 1865.
