Louisa May Alcott - Hospital Sketches - An Army Nursess True Account of her Experience During the Civil War

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Louisa May Alcott was an American Novelist, best known for the classic Little Women (1868) and its sequels Little Men and Jos Boys. Alcott was born on 29 November, 1832 in Germantown, Pennsylvania, USA, and was raised by her transcendentalist parents. The family, despite their connections with the American intellectual elite, suffered severe financial hardship and Alcott frequently helped to support the household. In 1840, after several financial setbacks, most notably following the experimental school set up by Louisa Mays father, the family moved to a cottage along the Sudbury River in Massachusetts. In 1843, the family moved again to the Utopian Fruitlands Community, an agrarian commune, dedicated to natural living. They finally settled in a house they named Hillside in 1845. As a result of this peripatetic childhood, Alcotts schooling was mainly received from her father, who was an incredibly strict disciplinarian, high thinker and advocate of plain living. This instilled a determination and strong work ethic in Alcott, who worked as a teacher, governess, seamstress and writer in her early years. As an adult, Alcott was a strong abolitionist and a feminist advocate, becoming the first woman to register to vote in Concord, in a school board election. During the civil war, Alcott worked as a nurse in the Union Hospital at Georgetown, D.C. She collected all her letters, often dryly humorous, in book entitled Hospital Sketches (1863); a work which brought Alcott critical acclaim. Following on from this success, Alcott wrote several novels under the pen name A. L. Barnard, most notably A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866) and A Modern Mephistopheles (1875). However, Little Women and its sequels were Alcotts major successes; the first book dealt with the childhood of Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy; characters strongly based on Alcotts childhood accompanied by her own three sisters. The sequel, Good Wives (1869) dealt with their progression into adulthood, whilst Little Men (1871) detailed Jos life at the school she founded alongside her husband. Jos Boys (1886) completed the Family Saga. The Character Jo was loosely based on Alcotts own life, however unlike the heroine, Alcott never married, commenting that I am more than half-persuaded that I am a man's soul put by some freak of nature into a woman's body ... because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man. Alcott was firmly part of the Gilded Age, along with authors such as Elizabeth Stoddard and Rebecca Harding Davis, she addressed womens issues in a modern and candid manner. Alcott continued to write until her death on 6 March, 1888. The cause of death is uncertain; she suffered chronic health problems, including vertigo and typhoid, the latter of which was treated with mercury. However recent analysis of her illnesses has suggested an autoimmune disease such as Lupus. She is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Massachusetts, on a hillside known as Authors Ridge.

THESE SKETCHES
ARE RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
TO HER FRIEND
MISS HANNAH STEVENSON,
BY
L. M. A.

A considerable portion of this volume was published in successive numbers of The Commonwealth, newspaper, of Boston. The sudden popularity the Sketches won from the general public, and the praise they received from literary men of distinguished ability, are sufficient reasons,were any needed,for their re-publication, thus revised and enlarged, in this more convenient and permanent form. As, besides paying the Author the usual copyright, the publisher has resolved to devote at least five cents of every copy sold to the support of orphans made fatherless or homeless by the war, no reproduction of any part of the contents now first printed in these pages, will be permitted in any journal. Should the sale of the little book be large, the orphans' percentage will be doubled.

Boston, August, 1863.

"I want something to do."

This remark being addressed to the world in general, no one in particular felt it their duty to reply; so I repeated it to the smaller world about me, received the following suggestions, and settled the matter by answering my own inquiry, as people are apt to do when very much in earnest.

"Write a book," quoth the author of my being.

"Don't know enough, sir. First live, then write."

"Try teaching again," suggested my mother.

"No thank you, ma'am, ten years of that is enough."

"Take a husband like my Darby, and fulfill your mission," said sister Joan, home on a visit.

"Can't afford expensive luxuries, Mrs. Coobiddy."

"Turn actress, and immortalize your name," said sister Vashti, striking an attitude.

"I won't."

"Go nurse the soldiers," said my young brother, Tom, panting for "the tented field."

"I will!"

So far, very good. Here was the willnow for the way. At first sight not a foot of it appeared, but that didn't matter, for the Periwinkles are a hopeful race; their crest is an anchor, with three cock-a-doodles crowing atop. They all wear rose-colored spectacles, and are lineal descendants of the inventor of aerial architecture. An hour's conversation on the subject set the whole family in a blaze of enthusiasm. A model hospital was erected, and each member had accepted an honorable post therein. The paternal P. was chaplain, the maternal P. was matron, and all the youthful P.s filled the pod of futurity with achievements whose brilliancy eclipsed the glories of the present and the past. Arriving at this satisfactory conclusion, the meeting adjourned, and the fact that Miss Tribulation was available as army nurse went abroad on the wings of the wind.

In a few days a townswoman heard of my desire, approved of it, and brought about an interview with one of the sisterhood which I wished to join, who was at home on a furlough, and able and willing to satisfy all inquiries. A morning chat with Miss General S.we hear no end of Mrs. Generals, why not a Miss?produced three results: I felt that I could do the work, was offered a place, and accepted it, promising not to desert, but stand ready to march on Washington at an hour's notice.

A few days were necessary for the letter containing my request and recommendation to reach headquarters, and another, containing my commission, to return; therefore no time was to be lost; and heartily thanking my pair of friends, I tore home through the December slush as if the rebels were after me, and like many another recruit, burst in upon my family with the announcement

"I've enlisted!"

An impressive silence followed. Tom, the irrepressible, broke it with a slap on the shoulder and the graceful compliment