CSA Nurse - Ella Newsom

[NH Civil War Gal]

National Museum of Civil War Medicine (with permission). I've never heard of this nurse! I wonder which Roman Catholic order she studied with? Well done, her!

During Women's History Month, we remember Ella Newsom. A wealthy widow from Arkansas, Ella Newsom studied nursing under the Roman Catholic sisters at the start of the Civil War.

As a hospital superintendent, Newsom served the wounded of the Confederate Army at hospitals in Nashville and Chattanooga, Tennessee; Corinth, Mississippi; and throughout Georgia. Her activities were so admired that she became known as "the Florence Nightingale of the Southern Army."

Image credit:
Courtesy of General Sweeney's Museum.

 

[DBF]

Ella King Newsom (1830–1919). Some interesting facts. Born in Mississippi, her father a native of North Carolina was a pastor and the first pastor to serve the First Baptist Church of Brandon, MS. Her mother was from an aristocratic Georgia family. Ella studied at Mary Sharp College which was a Baptist institution. When the war came she had a heart for nursing.

She married twice. Her first to a rich Doctor from Arkansas, Frank Newsom and after his death she was quite wealthy. Her 2nd husband was a veteran of the war, Confederate Colonel W.H. Trader. Married in 1867 he gave her a daughter and between the war and Trader, she was with nothing.

You can read more about her here:

https://prabook.com/web/ella.newsom/959872

 

[Tennessee Union Gal]

I have never heard of her, or many courageous and dedicated war nurses, more's the pity. These women, on both sides, worked tirelessly, often without remuneration, with tender care and wily resourcefulness. They tended the men who were the consequences of war, and are due utmost respect and recognition. All hail the Civil War nurses!