Military nursing arose from humble beginnings. Part I of a series to honor Nurses Week, May 6 – 12, will review the early history of the military nurse, along with the role of nurses in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War and the Spanish-American War.

In the beginning – The Revolutionary War

Until the birth of the United States, nursing was seen as a military or religious role. For this reason, nursing had significant male representation until the 1800s, according to a 2013 U.S. Census Bureau report on men in nursing occupations. However, exception was made during the Revolutionary War. Women who followed the Continental Army were considered “camp followers.” Some earned money and rations with the Army by nursing. Gen. George Washington wrote with concerns of keeping their numbers down, because the women would further decrease the rations set aside for soldiers.

In 1775, a congressional resolution allowed one nurse for every 10 patients in Continental hospitals. The resolution also allotted $2 a month for nurses. The pay was raised each year, up to $8 a month in 1777. Despite the increase in pay, there remained a shortage of nurses, according to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

The Civil War

During the American Civil War, which began in 1861 and lasted four years, women again nursed the sick and wounded, according to Philip Kalisch and Beatrice Kalisch in their book “American Nursing, A History.” More than 618,000 men died from battle injuries or disease during this time.

One hundred nurses were selected for modern nurse training based on the writings of nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale. Dorothea Dix was selected to organize a corps of female nurses in June 1861. She issued a circular that prohibited female candidates “below the age of 35 years, nor above 50.” Women who did not meet the criteria also nursed in the war, but without compensation.

In their published history of American nursing, Kalisch and Kalisch counted close to 10,000 women who served as nurses during the Civil War.

Guess Who?

Who would guess a novelist, a first lady and a poet served as military nurses in the Civil War?

Author Louisa May Alcott served as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War. During this time, she wrote her book “Hospital Sketches” about her experience. The book was published in 1863, nearly 20 years before her best known novel “Little Women.”

Poet Walt Whitman also served as a volunteer nurse. While searching for his brother, who had been wounded serving with the Army of the Potomac during the Civil War, the poet was so moved by what he saw that he began nursing wounded soldiers. He read to them, brought gifts of fruit and candy and occasionally wrote letters they dictated. Like Alcott, Whitman wrote about his hospital service with poems in his book “Drum Taps.”

First lady Mary Todd Lincoln is also cited as a volunteer nurse. She brought food to the wounded, read to them, raised money during the Civil War, toured Union Army camps and reviewed troops with her husband, according to the National First Ladies’ Library. After the war, she backed the establishment of a nursing corps.

Former slaves served as nurses during the Civil War. In addition to working as a spy and scout, Harriet Tubman served as a nurse for the Union Army. Susie King Taylor, noted as the first black Army nurse, provided care for the all-black Army troop named the First South Carolina Volunteers, 33rd Regiment, for four years. In 1863, Ann Stokes volunteered to serve as a nurse when the U.S. Navy enlisted several young African American women into the Navy. She was given the rank of “first class boy” and served on the USS Red Rover Navy hospital ship.

Spanish-American War

Female contract nurses were officially added by the U.S. military during the Spanish-American War, which began in 1898. These nurses had graduated from nursing training schools, and for the first time, worked in military hospitals—a foreshadowing of women in the armed forces. At the war’s end, more than 1,500 had nurses served, including 250 nuns, 80 black nurses, and at least four Native Americans. Historians record 21 of these women died after contracting illnesses from those they cared for.

The Army surgeons preferred male nurses, so an attempt was made to enlarge the small hospital corps that existed in 1898. The corps grew from 723 to nearly 6,000. Although trained recruits were preferred, the need for nurses was great, so commanders temporarily detailed infantry squads to work in camp hospitals, according to accounts in “American Nursing, A History.” These soldiers had low status, low pay and little respect from other soldiers despite performing duties “far more arduous and taxing than those of his comrades bearing arms. In constant contact with infectious diseases, he exposed himself to more danger than if he were on the battlefield,” the authors wrote.

The need for and acceptance of female nurses emerged as the country entered World War I. The military established the first of three nurse corps, with formal training and education to care for the ill and injured service members on the battlefield for the next 40 years. The second in this series of articles honoring Nurses Week will explain the rise of the Army, Navy and Air Force nurse corps, their role in World War II along with four more wars, as well as cite some of the notable ‘firsts’ and achievements of military nurses.