by Jeanne Gehret
by Jeanne Gehret
For those who prefer to read, here’s the text of the video.
I love Mary Ann Bickerdyke for her fierce devotion to the soldiers she called “her boys.” As a Civil War nurse, she was a particular favorite of the soldiers.
Bickerdyke set up more than 300 field hospitals for soldiers and made sure they were clean in an era when many wounded died of contagious diseases. She gathered nutritious food and medicines for them and set up laundries, often finding that their clothing was in rags.
Nineteen times she accompanied troops to warfare, going with a lantern at nightfall to take wounded men off the battlefield.
Mother Bickerdyke, as the men called this Civil War nurse, had no patience with officers who didn’t treat their men right. One morning when a surgeon was late because of a drinking spree, she called for his discharge. When he protested about her to General Sherman, the general replied, “Well, if it was her, I can do nothing for you. She ranks me.”
In my Civil War era novel The Truth About Daniel, Annie Anthony works with a local chapter of the Sanitary Commission to supply soldiers with sewing kits called “housewives,” because it helped them to repair their own clothing.
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