Catholic Women and the American Civil War
Catholic Women & the American Civil War
Between 1861 and 1865, approximately 640 women from twenty-one different religious communities volunteered their nursing services. Mary Livermore, a women's rights leader who worked with the U.S. Sanitary Commission, recalled:
I am neither a Catholic, nor an advocate of the monastic institutions of that church . . . But I can never forget my experience during the War of the Rebellion . . . Never did I meet these Catholic sisters in hospitals, on transports, or hospital steamers, without observing their devotion, faithfulness, and unobtrusiveness. They gave themselves no airs of superiority or holiness, shirked no duty, sought no easy place, bred no mischiefs. Sick and wounded men watched for their entrance into the wards at morning, and looked a regretful farewell when they departed at night.
From: Livermore, Mary. What Shall We Do With Our Daughters: Superflous Women and Other Lectures. Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1883: 177. Full text available in the HathiTrust database.
The Daughters of Charity, known as the “angels of the battlefield,” were among the American Civil War’s most renowned nurses. More importantly, the Daughters were already technically trained medical workers at a time when most nurses could barely administer more than cloth bandages. On September 17, 1862, the Maryland authorities petitioned the help of the Sisters at St. Joseph's of Emmitsburg. The Sisters ventured onto the battlefield where they risked open fire and unexploded bombshells to recover the wounded and sick of both armies.