Civil War Nurses

Clara Barton: The Life and Legacy of the Civil War Nurse Who Founded the American Red Cross chronicles her remarkable life, and the manner in which she changed nursing in America forever. You will learn about Clara Barton like never before.

Susie King Taylor, born a slave in 1848, would learn to read at secret schools and go on to teach countless others to read and write. Follow the course of the Civil War in her own words as she remembers her work as a nurse and teacher with an Army troop of African-American soldiers.

The battle lasted three days. The healing took months. While 51,000 men lay wounded across the fields of Gettysburg, a different kind of battle began—one fought not with rifles, but with scalpels, bandages, and bare hands. The story history forgot. Every church became an operating theater. Doors were ripped from hinges to serve as surgical tables. A town of 2,400 people suddenly faced caring for 21,000 wounded soldiers—nine casualties for every man, woman, and child. Surgeons operated for twenty consecutive hours. Fifteen-year-old girls changed bandages on gangrenous wounds. Farmers' ...

In the novel Little Women, Mr. March goes off to war. But in real life, it was Jo March (Louisa May Alcott herself, an avowed abolitionist) who traveled to Washington to nurse Northern soldiers. This is Alcott’s memoir but she chose to use the pseudonym “Tribulation Periwinkle” to tell her...

When Frank Thompson sees a poster requesting recruits for the new Union army, he is ready and willing to enlist. Except Frank isn’t his real name. In fact, Frank isn’t a man—he is really Sarah Emma Edmonds. At only nineteen years old, Sarah had already been dressing as a man for three years and living on the run in order to escape an arranged marriage. She had tasted freedom, and there was no going back.

The #1 bestselling chapter book series of all time celebrates 25 years with new covers and a new, easy-to-use numbering system! Cannon fire! That's what Jack and Annie hear when the Magic Tree House whisks them back to the time of the American Civil War. There they meet a famous nurse named...

The compelling untold story of a group of stranded U.S. Army nurses and medics fighting to escape Nazi-occupied Europe. When 26 Army nurses and medics-part of the 807th Medical Air Evacuation Transport Squadron-boarded a cargo plane for transport in November 1943, they never anticipated the...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War in this “riveting reexamination of a nation in tumult” (Los Angeles Times). “A feast of historical insight...

"Within the harrowing landscape of both the Spanish Civil War and World War II, Escobar shines a light on hope and humanity. Descriptions and prose, both startling and lyrical, bring you into the scene and into the lives of both Elisabeth and Isabel as they strive to survive, thrive, and care...

Lovely Julia Hoffman has always enjoyed the carefree life of her well-to-do Philadelphia family. But when she fails to attract the attention of Nathaniel Greene, a fierce abolitionist, she shocks her family by becoming a Union nurse. Will that be enough to win Nathaniel's heart? Phoebe Bigelow, from western Virginia, has always been a misfit, and when her brothers join the Union army, she also enlists—under false pretenses.

Mary Bickerdyke. Never heard of her? You're not alone! In my unofficial survey, I have yet to find a single person who has. This short story, about a 20 minute read, is a lost treasure that somehow slipped through the cracks of Civil War history. You will understand, after reading it, why she was called America's Florence Nightingale and why General Sherman said of her, "She outranks me."

New York, 1866. Afiya Freeman arrives in the city with nothing but a worn suitcase, her grandmother's recipes, and a dream she barely dares to name. As a colored nurse at Bellevue Hospital, she knows the rules: work hard, stay invisible, want only what the world will allow. Then she meets Dr. Morgan Caldwell. Tall, fair-haired, and impossibly kind, Morgan sees Afiya as no one else does—not as a problem to be managed, but as a woman worthy of respect. And desire. When he brings her tea after a grueling shift, when his hand lingers on hers a moment too long, when he whispers her name like a...

Her life has been wonderfully fictionalized on the hit PBS TV series, Mercy Street. Here is Mary Phinney's real life in her own words, long prized by historians as a source about Civil War medicine. American Mary Phinney was ahead of her time. A rebel against the restrictions placed on women of her day, the sad death of her husband, the Barron von Olnhausen, proved to be the real beginning of her life. Upon the outbreak of the American Civil War, this remarkable woman enlisted herself in the care of sick and wounded soldiers. Working with Dorothea Dix and other notable women of the Civil War, she tirelessly worked to improve the sanitary conditions, medical care, and morale of shattered young men.

When a mysterious stranger claims to be her fiancé, the fight to save her land turns into a battle for her heart. Daviana Spalding dreams of leaving Georgia in search of a place where she can prove her worth as more than a claim to land. And when a handsome and kind stranger wanders onto the farm in need of help, she can’t help but see him in those dreams too. Yet those are only daydreams…until the Freedmen’s Bureau shows up threatening to take their land, and her guest steps forward claiming to be her betrothed. Simon McNeil is a man haunted by his past and his time in a Confederate...

He was the shadow of a legend. She had twenty-seven days to teach him he was a man. Veracruz, February 1869. Thomas Jackson Jr. carries the most famous name in the Confederacy and the certainty that he will never deserve it. Sent away at birth, raised on formality and silence, he arrives at the island fortress of San Juan de Ulua with impossible orders: hold the walls for eighteen days, long enough to evacuate 1,847 souls who will die if he fails. He does not expect Annie Callahan. A fortress nurse with steady hands and a gaze that will not look away, she sees past the name, past the shadow...

The Plunge, is all about getting out of your comfort zone to achieve something. Taking the plunge. George had made fleeting appearances in the three earlier stories, well this is his story. He is the longest story so far .., and he is a busy man. He runs his own business, he is Kathy's father, father-in-law to Hal and Jo's big brother. Not surprisingly, he is too busy to tell his tale, so his wife Penny has taken on the task. She has been there from the beginning and met the important people that came before. Enjoy

Uncover the dramatic hidden history of female spies, soldiers, and nurses who defied expectations on the home front. Perfect for your daily commute, this inspiring narrative plunges you into the tense, fractured reality of a divided nation. Experience the resilience of unsung heroes who fought...

With her stammering tongue and quiet ways, Cadence Piper has always struggled to be accepted. After the death of her mother, Cadence sets her heart on becoming a nurse, both to erase the stain her brother has left on the family’s honor and to find long-sought approval in the eyes of her father...

A quick look at women doctors and medicine in the Civil War for the general reader. Technologically, the American Civil War was the first “modern” war, but medically it still had its roots in the Middle Ages. In both the North and the South, thousands of women served as nurses to help wounded and suffering soldiers and civilians. A few women served as doctors, a remarkable feat in an era when sex discrimination prevented women from pursuing medical education, and those few who did were often obstructed by their male colleagues at every turn.

The Civil War created a medical catastrophe that the United States was utterly unprepared to face, and women stepped in to save it. As hundreds of thousands of wounded and dying soldiers flooded overcrowded camps and makeshift hospitals, surgeons and nurses faced disease, amputations, and death on a scale the nation had never experienced before. Women became essential to holding the system together. Disease killed more men than bullets. Surgeons amputated limbs by the thousands. Infection swept through wards thick with blood, gangrene, and human waste. Into that chaos stepped women who were...