Many women served as paid and volunteer nurses during the Civil War, and many others contributed their service through civilian organizations. There are a large number of books pertaining to women' s roles during the war. Some are listed below, more can be found online at the Dispensary Museum Store. The Museum Store also offers a variety of books containing the letters and personal memoirs of individual women.
If you are searching for information on a specific nurse, start with the records of the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, DC. The National Archives has pension records for many Union nurses, starting after 1898. Other groups of records also contain information on individual nurses, and hospital employee lists often contain the names of female nurses. For information on these records, call the Old Military and Civil Records Division of the National Archives at (202) 501-5390 or go to www.archives.gov.
If you have a specific question about a particular nurse, the NMCWM accepts research requests for an initial fee of $10. The fee covers up to 1 hour of research--if more is necessary, an additional fee will be charged. Please send research requests and payment* to:
NMCWM
Attn: Director of Research
P.O. Box 470
Frederick, MD 21705
*All requests require prepayment. Request fee payments may be made in the form of cash, check (made payable to NMCWM), Visa, MasterCard, or Discover (for credit cards, the following are required: credit card number, expiration date, security code located on the back of the card in the signature line, full name of card holder, billing address and phone number).
Be sure to include your mailing address and email address. The Museum does not accept phone requests. Please do not ask for general information-- there is so much available that we cannot comply with such a request.
Most of the books referenced here, plus many others, may be purchased online or directly through the Dispensary Museum Store of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine. Some titles may be currently unavailable if they are out of print. Students working on school projects should use the Student Resources section of the online Dispensary Museum Store. Questions concerning titles may be directed to 301-695-5225 or email store@civilwarmed.org.
A Manual of Directions Prepared for the Use of the Nurses in the Army Hospitals by a Committee of Hospital Physicians of the City of New York; published by the Woman’s Central Association of Relief to the Army, New York, 1861
Angels of Mercy: An Eyewitness Account of the Civil War and Yellow Fever; A Primary Source by Sister Ignatius Sumner, R.S.M.; author/ editor Sister Mary Paulinus Oakes, R.S.M., 1998
A Vast Army of Women: Maine’s Unaccounted Forces in the American Civil War; Lynda L. Sudlow, 2000
A Woman of Honor: Dr. Mary E. Walker and the Civil War; Mercedes Graf, 2001
A Woman of Valor: Clara Barton and the Civil War; Stephen B. Oates, 1994
Confederate Ladies of Richmond; Susan Provost Beller, 1999
Heart' s Work: Civil War Heroine and Champion of the Mentally Ill, Dorothea Lynde Dix; Charles Schlaifer and Lucy Freeman, 1991
Hospital Days: Reminiscence of a Civil War Nurse; Jane Staurt Woolsey, reprinted 1996
Hospital Sketches; Louisa May Alcott, 1988 (first printing 1863)
Journal of Women' s Civil War History, Volume I; edited by Eileen Conklin, 2001
Our Army Nurses: Stories from Women in the Civil War; Mary Gardner Holland, originally published 1895, reprinted 1998
The Other Side of War: On the Hospital Transports with the Army of the Potomac; Katharine Prescott Wormeley, 1899; reprinted 1998
To Bind up the Wounds: Catholic Sister Nurses in the U.S. Civil War; Sister Mary Dennis Maher, Louisiana State University Press, 1989
Trials and Triumphs: the Women of the American Civil War; Marilyn Mayer Culpepper, 1991
Valor and Lace: The Roles of Confederate Women 1861-1865; Edited by Mauriel Phillips Joslyn, Journal of Confederate History Series, Volume XV, 1996
White Roses; Rebecca D. Larson, 1997
Women in the Civil War; Douglas J. Savage, 2000
Women in the Civil War : Warriors, Patriots, Nurses and Spies; Phyllis Raybin Emert; 1995