Ronald S. Coddington - Faces of Civil War Nurses

N ORTHERN AND S OUTHERN WOMEN RADIATED PATRIOTIC fervor equal to their male counterparts during the American Civil War. Outlets to express their patriotism differed considerably. A man could walk into the nearest recruitment office and join the army or navy. This simple, voluntary act inaugurated a formal process that might end in battlefield glory or honorable deaththe final measure and ultimate expression of patriotism. A tiny fraction of women successfully concealed their gender and enlisted in the army. The vast majority of women, however, followed a path that ended in the parlor of a prominent family home, a church nave, or other community gathering place. There they formed charitable societies to aid brothers, sons, and husbands far away on the front lines. Membership in such societies allowed women to contribute to the war effort in critical support roles that bettered the lives of military men and their families. Yet these roles did not offer opportunities for battlefield heroics and honor.

In the North, a subset of aid society volunteers extended their work beyond home and hearth through two national philanthropies founded early in the war, the U.S. Sanitary Commission and the U.S. Christian Commission. These organizations established formal paths for women to contribute to the military effort as relief workers. The Union Army created an additional path when it appointed social reformer Dorothea L. Dix as superintendent of army nurses in June 1861. Women entered the service as paid nurses through Dix and, later in the war, through the Surgeon Generals Office.