The best books on women nurses during the Civil War

As many as 20,000 women worked in Union and Confederate hospitals during America's bloodiest war. Black and white, and from various social classes, these women served as nurses, administrators, matrons, seamstresses, cooks, laundresses, and custodial workers. Jane Schultz provides the first full history of these female relief workers and shows how the domestic and military arenas merged in Civil War America, blurring the line between homefront and battle-front. Examining the lives and legacies of Dorothea Dix, Clara Barton, Susie King Taylor, and others, Schultz demonstrates that class, race, and gender roles linked female workers with soldiers, both black and white.… show more.

Complete and unabridged paperback edition.

Collection of short stories.

First published in 1863.

Civil War on the Peninsula: Women and the U.S. Sanitary Commission. The U.S. Sanitary Commission was a volunteer medical and relief organization during the Civil War, in which women played a significant role. The author draws on the letters of women serving in McClellan's Peninsula campaign of 1862 to integrate social, cultural and military history into a gripping narrative.

Scottish-born, Alabama-bred Kate Cumming was one of the first women to offer her services for the care of the South's wounded soldiers. Her detailed journal, first published in 1866, provides a riveting look behind the lines of Civil War action in depicting civilian attitudes, army medical practices, and the administrative workings of the Confederate hospital system.

Near the end of her classic wartime account, Susie King Taylor writes, ""There are many people who do not know what some of the colored women did during the war."" For her own part, Taylor spent four years - without pay or formal training - nursing sick and wounded members of a black regiment of Union soldiers. In addition, she worked as a camp cook, laundress, and even teacher. Written from a perspective unique in the literature of the Civil War, ""Reminiscences of My Life in Camp"" not only chronicles daily life on the battlefront but also records interactions between… show more.