A bibliography of first hand accounts of nursing
(both male and female) during the American Civil War.
Most are available for free online,
at Archive.org, the Hathi Trust, or Google Books.
Alcott, Louisa May. (1871). Hospital sketches. Boston: Roberts Brothers.
Anonymous. (1885). “Our women in the war”: The lives they lived, the deaths they died. Charleston: The News and Courier Book Presses.
Anonymous (“The Patriot Daughters of Lancaster”), Hospital Scenes after the battle of Gettysburg, July 1863 (1864), Lancaster, Pa.: Daily Inquirer Steam Job Print
Beers, Fannie A. (1888) Memories, Philadelphia: Lippincott Co.
Berlin, Jean (Ed.). A Confederate nurse: The diary of Ada W. Bacot 1860-1863. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.
Boyden, Anna. (1884). Echoes from hospital and White House: A record of Mrs. Rebecca R. Pomroy’s experiences in war-times. Boston: D. Lothrop.
Brockett, L. P. (1867). Woman’s work in the Civil War: A record of heroism, patriotism, and patience. Philadelphia: Zeigler, McCurdy, and Co.
Bryce, Mrs Campbell, (1897). Reminiscences of the Hospitals of Columbia, S.C. during the four years of the Civil War. (Philadelphia J.P. Lippincott)
Bucklin, Sophronia. (1869). In hospital and camp: A woman’s thrilling incidents among the wounded in the late war. Philadelphia: John E. Potter and Co.
Burton, Margaret Davis. (1886) The woman who battled for the boys in blue. Mother Bickerdyke; her life and labors for the relief of our soldiers. Sketches of battle scenes and incidents of the sanitary service, San Francisco: A. T. Dewey
Cumming, Kate. (1866). A journal of hospital life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee from the Battle of Shiloh to the end of the war. Louisville: John P Morton & Co.
Edmonds, S. Emma E. (1865). Nurse and spy: The adventures and experiences of a woman in hospitals, camps, and battlefields. Hartford: W. S. Williams.
Erving, Annie Priscilla Zerbe. (1904). Reminiscences of the life of a nurse in field, hospital, and camp during the Civil War. Newburgh, New York: Daily News.
Gibbons, Abby Hopper. (1896). Life of Abby Hopper Gibbons, Vol. I. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
H., Mrs. (Anna Morris Holstein) (1867). Three years in field hospitals of the Army of the Potomac. Philadelphia: Lippincott & Co.
Hanson, Kathleen S. (Ed). (2006). Turn backward, O time: The Civil War diary of Amanda Shelton. Roseville, MN: Edinborough Press.
Holland, Mary Gardner. (1895). Our Army nurses: Stories from women in the Civil War. Boston: B. Wilkins & Co. (dozens of CW nurses telling their own memories)
Jaquette, Henrietta Stratton (Ed.). (1998). Letters of a Civil War Nurse: Cornelia Hancock, 1863 – 1865. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Kellogg, Florence Shaw. (1907) Mother Bickerdyke as I knew her. Chicago: Unity Publishing Company
Krug, Mark M. (Ed.) (1980). Mrs. Hill’s journal – Civil War reminiscences. Chicago: R. R. Donnelley & Sons Co.
Lawrence, Catherine S. (1893). Autobiography: Sketch of life and labors of Miss Catherine S. Lawrence. Albany, NY: Amasa J. Parker, Parsons & Co.
Livermore, Mary A. (1889). My story of the war: A woman’s narrative of four years personal experience as nurse in the Union Army. Hartford, CT: A. D. Worthington and Co.
Livermore, Mary A. (1899) The story of my life: or, The sunshine and shadow of seventy years. Hartford, A.D. Worthington
Mason, Emily. (1901/02). “Memories of a hospital matron:” A two part article in The Atlantic Monthly in 1901-1902
McKay, Charlotte Elizabeth. (1876). Stories of Hospital and Camp. Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen, and Haffelfinge.
Moore, Frank. (1866). Women of the war; And their heroism and self-sacrifice. Hartford: S. S. Scranton & Co. (first-person accounts)
Olnhausen, Mary Phinney von (1904). Adventures of an Army Nurse in Two Wars: Boston: Little, Brown and Co.
Parsons, Emily. (1880). Memoir of Emily Elizabeth Parsons. Boston: Little, Brown, Co.
Pember, Phoebe Yates. (1879). A southern woman’s story: Phoebe Yates Pember. New York: G. W. Carleton & Co.
Powers, Elvira J. (1866). Hospital Pencillings, being a diary while in Jefferson General Hospital, Jeffersonville, Ind., and others at Nashville, Tenn. as matron and visitor (Boston, Edward L. Mitchell)
*Richards, Maria Hall “Camp Hospitals of the Army of the Potomac”, War Memories XXXVI, in The Springfield Republican (Springfield, Mass.), 20 December 1886
*Richards, Maria Hall “Hospital Life: Recollections of an Army Nurse,”, War Memories XXXVII, in The Springfield Republican (Springfield, Mass.), 13 December 1886
*Richards, Maria Hall “Nursing the Wounded of South Mountain and Antietam (I): record of a nurse’s work among Federal and Confederate soldiers”, War Memories LII, in The Springfield Republican (Springfield, Mass.), 3 January 1887
*Richards, Maria Hall “Nursing the Wounded of South Mountain and Antietam (I): Smoketown Hospital, a woman’s stories of nursing,” War Memories LIII, in The Springfield Republican (Springfield, Mass.), 10 January 1887
Rodgers, Sarah Sites. (1996). The ties of the past: The Gettysburg diaries of Salome Myers Stewart 1854-1922. Gettysburg, PA: Thomas Publications.
Ropes, Hannah. (1980). Civil War Nurse: The diary and letters of Hannah Ropes, 1862-63. (John R. Brumgardt, Ed. and introduction). Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
Schultz, Jane E. (ed) (2010 This Birth Place of Souls: the Civil War nursing diary of Harriet Eaton. Oxford University Press.
Schwartz, G. (Ed.) (1984). A woman doctor’s Civil War: Esther Hill Hawks’ diary. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press.
Smith, Adelaide W. (1911). Reminiscences of an Army Nurse during the Civil War. New York: Greaves Publishing Co.
Souder, Emily Bliss Thatcher (Mrs. Edmund A.) (1864). Leaves from the battle-field of Gettysburg: A series of letters from a field hospital. Philadelphia: Canton Press of Sherman, Son & Co.
*Squire, Mary E. “Youngest Nurse in Civil War,” in Sheboygan Press, 20 October 1915
Sterns, Amanda Akin. (1909). The Lady Nurse of Ward E. NY: Baker & Taylor Co.
Taylor, Susie King. (1902). Reminiscences of my life in camp with the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops, late 1st South Carolina Volunteers: A black woman’s Civil War memoirs. Boston: SK Taylor.
Wheelock, Julia S. (1870). The boys in white: The experience of a hospital agent in and around Washington. New York: Lange & Hillman
Wittenmyer, Annie. (1895). Under the guns: A woman’s reminiscences of the Civil War. Boston: E.B. Stillings & Co.
Woolsey, Georgeanna. (1863). Three Weeks at Gettysburg, New York: Anson D. Randolph
Woolsey, Jane Stuart. (1868). Hospital days: Reminiscence of a Civil War nurse. New York: E. Nostrand
Wormeley, Katherine Prescott. (1898). The cruel side of war with the Army of the Potomac: Letters of the United States Sanitary Commission. Boston: Roberts Brothers.
Young, Sarah Palmer (1879) The Story of Aunt Becky’s Army Life. New York, J. F. Trow & Co.
* entries marked thus are newspaper memoirs, which may be found online as part of the Civil War Miscellany.
Please send any additions or corrections to
jjhartwell@yahoo.com