Civil War Nurses

Clara Barton wrote the poem “The Women Who Went to the Field” about the many nurses that volunteered to serve during the Civil War. In it she mentions that the identities of many of these women might never be fully known:

And who were they all? – They were many, my men:

Their record was kept by no tabular pen:

They exist in traditions from father to son.

Who recalls, in dim memory, now here and there one.-

A few names where writ, and by chance live to-day;

But’s a perishing record fast fading away.

Of those we recall, there are scarcely a score,

Dix, Dame, Bickerdyke,—Edson, Harvey, and Moore,

Fales, Wittenmyer, Gilson, Safford and Lee,

And poor Cutter dead in the sands of the sea;

And Frances D. Gage, our “Aunt Fanny” of old,

Whose voice rang for freedom when freedom was sold.

And Husband, and Etheridge, and Harlan and Case,

Livermore, Alcott, Hancock, and Chase,

And Turner, and Hawley, and Potter, and Hall.

Ah! the list grows apace, as they come at the call:

Did these women quail at the sight of a gun?

Will some soldier tell us of one he saw run?

Will he glance at the boats on the great western flood,

At Pittsburgh and Shiloh, did they faint at the blood?

And the brave wife of Grant stood there with them then,

And her calm, stately presence gave strength to his men.

And Marie of Logan; she went with them too;

A bride, scarcely more than a sweetheart, 'tis true.

Her young cheek grows pale when the bold troopers ride.

Where the "Black Eagle" soars, she is close at his side,

She staunches his blood, cools the fever-burnt breath,

And the wave of her hand stays the Angle of Death;

She nurses him back, and restores once again

To both army and state the brave leader of men.

She has smoothed his black plumes and laid them to sleep,

Whilst the angels above them their high vigils keep:

And she sits here alone, with the snow on her brow -

Your cheers for her comrades! Three cheers for her now.

And these were the women who went to the war:

The women of question; what did they go for?

Because in their hearts God had planted the seed

Of pity for woe, and help for its need;

They saw, in high purpose, a duty to do,

And the armor of right broke the barriers through.

Uninvited, unaided, unsanctioned ofttimes,

With pass, or without it, they pressed on the lines;

They pressed, they implored, till they ran the lines through,

And this was the "running" the men saw them do.

'T was a hampered work, its worth largely lost;

'T was hindrance, and pain, and effort, and cost:

But through these came knowledge, - knowledge is power.-

And never again in the deadliest hour

Of war or of peace shall we be so beset

To accomplish the purpose our spirits have met.

And what would they do if war came again?

The scarlet cross floats where all was blank then.

They would bind on their "brassards" and march to the fray,

And the man liveth not who could say to them nay;

They would stand with you now, as they stood with you then,

The nurses, consolers, and saviours of men.

Ah! The list grows apace, as they come at the call…