Featured Georgeanna Woosley and the Brave Nurses

hanna260

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So, I was inspired by @chellers (thanks, by the way!- hope you don't mind) who talked about her avatar in another thread, and how it represented her profession to look up the beautiful woman in cheller's avatar. Her name is Georgeanna Woolsey and she was pretty incredible. All nurses were- I don't know much about nursing as a profession or during the Civil War- so hoping some of you guys can help me out. :smile: She was a young, un-married woman in the beginning of the war, who was selected to become a volunteer nurse. She writes about the struggles they endured with the men of their own hospital.

No one knows who did not watch the thing from the beginning, how much opposition, how much ill-will, how much unfeeling want of thought, these women nurses endured. Hardly a surgeon whom I can think of received or treated them with even common courtesy. Government had decided that women should be employed, and the Army surgeons—unable, therefore to close the hospitals against them—determined to make their lives so unbearable that they should be forced in self-defense to leave.

Now, doesn't that just make your blood boil a bit- these brave woman who come to help the men on the front-lines, toil day in and out, see horrendous sights, and they're treated abominably by the people who should be on their side. She describes what it was like: nursing young men who were dying.

On the stacks of marble slabs…we spread mattresses, and put the sickest men. As the number increased, camp beds were set up between the glass cases in the outer room and we alternated—typhoid fever, cogwheels and patent churns, typhoid fever, balloons and mouse traps…Here for weeks, went on a sort of hospital pic-nic. We scrambled through with what we had to do…Here for weeks we worked among these men, cooking for them, feeding them, washing them, sliding them along on their tables, while we climbed up on something and made up their beds with brooms, putting the same powders down their throats with the same spoon, all up and down what seemed half a mile of uneven floor; coaxing back to life some of the most unpromising—watching the youngest and best die.

Georgeanna Woolsey : A Day in the Life of a Northern Nurse
http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/on-the-homefront/culture/nurse.html




 
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Louisa May Alcott wrote "Hospital Sketches" about her experience. Its worth a look.


Yes, of course being Louisa it's written so well you are there, even the part where she's nearly not there due to disease- you'll love it!

The Woolsey sisters were incredible- you've also inspired me to stop wishing I had even more material and glue something together on all of them as a family. Lucky for us your Georgiana was so talented with words, conveying her experiences and surroundings into literal feelings jumping into our shredded hearts as hers was. Tough reading albeit necessary, tales so much of the glitter out of all the aggressive patriotism.

Thanks for posting!
 
Hanna, thank you for this beautiful post about Civil War nurse, Georgeanna Woolsey. She was, indeed, a brave woman as were all the women who served in the fields of horror. It was not a calling for the faint of heart. Oh, how I wish her letters had survived as the excerpts from her extant letters are interesting and very touching. Thank you, @hanna260, for the link.
 
Hanna, thank you for this beautiful post about Civil War nurse, Georgeanna Woolsey. She was, indeed, a brave woman as were all the women who served in the fields of horror. It was not a calling for the faint of heart. Oh, how I wish her letters had survived as the excerpts from her extant letters are interesting and very touching. Thank you, @hanna260, for the link.

Well, thank you for inspiring the post by your wonderful avatar! She was an amazing woman and I'm so glad you liked the link. :smile:
 
From Diary of a Confederate Nurse, Kate Cumming

"I sat up all night, bathing the men's wounds, and giving them water. Every one attending to them seemed completely worn out. Some of the doctors told me that they had scarcely slept since the battle. As far as I have seen, the surgeons are very kind to the wounded, and nurse as well as doctor them. The men are lying all over the house, on their blankets, just as they were brought from the battle-field. They are in the hall, on the gallery, and crowded into very small rooms. The foul air from this mass of human beings at first made me giddy and sick, but I soon got over it. We have to walk, and when we give the men any thing kneel, in blood and water; but we think nothing of it at all."

Maybe the Confederate surgeons has a better attitude toward women nurses in the hospitals? It seems that they were generally happy to have their help.

"Ladies can be of much service in the hospitals. I have heard surgeons say that if they could get the right kind, they would have them in almost every department. All have not the gift of nursing but there are few who can not do housekeeping, and there is much of that to be done in a hospital. ..... I have waited upon the soldiers of our army in hospitals and out of them, and in all sincerity, I can say that I have never heard one word spoken or seen one act at which the most refined woman could take offense. This deference to women was more than I expected, for knowing that the army is composed of the lowest as well as the highest, I thought that some of them might be devoid of delicacy.

I cannot tell whether our army is an exception to others or not, but about it I can say, as regards to real native refinement, that which all the teachings of Chesterfield cannot give, a more perfect army of gentleman are not to be found anywhere. I know nothing of what they are in camp, but as I have found them."
 
Why we are so familiar with Geogeanna and her sisters, thank you Carolina! Can you imagine opening this genetic jackpot, your trunk into your family's incredible female History?

"In 1917, a large trunk arrived at the home of Caroline Woolsey Ferriday in Bethlehem.

Inside were hundreds of letters and a half-dozen small leather-covered journals written by her great-aunts during the Civil War -- three sisters, Georgeanna, Jane and Eliza Woolsey. The women were among the first female volunteers in the Civil War, which many believe marked the beginning of nursing as a profession. "

" The sisters were from a wealthy New York family. All nine Woolsey children -- eight girls and one boy -- were well-educated, spoke several languages and spent summers in Lenox, Mass., or abroad. Their mother, Jane Woolsey, had grown up on a plantation in Virginia worked by slaves, but she was staunchly abolitionist. During the Civil War, she and the family members who remained north joined the war effort by helping supply Union hospital ships with bandages, medicine, clothing and food through a civilian organization called the Sanitary Commission. "

"In a letter dated July 22, 1861, Georgy wrote to her cousin Margaret about treating soldiers wounded in the Battle of Bull Run in Virginia, which ended with a chaotic retreat by the Union army.

``Everything was in our hands and success seemed certain at Bull Run, when from some cause or other a panic was created, our men fell back, the rebels seized the moment for a bold rush and we were entirely routed. Joe says there never was a more complete defeat. All last night the soldiers were arriving in all sorts of conveyances, and on horses cut from ambulances and baggage wagons. An officer from Bull Run told us he saw four soldiers on one horse; and so they came flying back to Washington in all directions.''

Here's something you just never see mentioned which has always blown me away- trust Georganna to see the situation for what it was- that someone decided to throw an entire war and forgot to bring bandaids.


In her journal on Sept. 25, 1861, Georgy complained about the Union's lack of preparedness: ``The government's boats have been unprovisioned & unmedicated & unstored in all ways. And if the Commission had not been here the men would have starved.'' (She was referring to the Sanitary Commission, started and supported by private citizens including her family.)
 
Why we are so familiar with Geogeanna and her sisters, thank you Carolina! Can you imagine opening this genetic jackpot, your trunk into your family's incredible female History?

"In 1917, a large trunk arrived at the home of Caroline Woolsey Ferriday in Bethlehem.

Inside were hundreds of letters and a half-dozen small leather-covered journals written by her great-aunts during the Civil War -- three sisters, Georgeanna, Jane and Eliza Woolsey. The women were among the first female volunteers in the Civil War, which many believe marked the beginning of nursing as a profession. "

" The sisters were from a wealthy New York family. All nine Woolsey children -- eight girls and one boy -- were well-educated, spoke several languages and spent summers in Lenox, Mass., or abroad. Their mother, Jane Woolsey, had grown up on a plantation in Virginia worked by slaves, but she was staunchly abolitionist. During the Civil War, she and the family members who remained north joined the war effort by helping supply Union hospital ships with bandages, medicine, clothing and food through a civilian organization called the Sanitary Commission. "

"In a letter dated July 22, 1861, Georgy wrote to her cousin Margaret about treating soldiers wounded in the Battle of Bull Run in Virginia, which ended with a chaotic retreat by the Union army.

``Everything was in our hands and success seemed certain at Bull Run, when from some cause or other a panic was created, our men fell back, the rebels seized the moment for a bold rush and we were entirely routed. Joe says there never was a more complete defeat. All last night the soldiers were arriving in all sorts of conveyances, and on horses cut from ambulances and baggage wagons. An officer from Bull Run told us he saw four soldiers on one horse; and so they came flying back to Washington in all directions.''

Here's something you just never see mentioned which has always blown me away- trust Georganna to see the situation for what it was- that someone decided to throw an entire war and forgot to bring bandaids.


In her journal on Sept. 25, 1861, Georgy complained about the Union's lack of preparedness: ``The government's boats have been unprovisioned & unmedicated & unstored in all ways. And if the Commission had not been here the men would have starved.'' (She was referring to the Sanitary Commission, started and supported by private citizens including her family.)

Wow! Neat! Thanks so much for sharing. :smile:
 
I hadn't been aware there was more than one of her- Georgiana seem more than enough for any family right? Bumped into something listing all of them. What a service oriented family- wish I knew all the names from the top of my head. Thankfully they seem to have written their experiences down- also thankfully their relative allowed us all a chance at knowing them, too. Can you imagine opening that trunk? Like Christmas squared and cubed, all your most extravagant dreams as an ancestor hunter met and surpassed.

Thank you Woolsey descendent, sharing your treasures with all of us.
 
No one knows who did not watch the thing from the beginning, how much opposition, how much ill-will, how much unfeeling want of thought, these women nurses endured. Hardly a surgeon whom I can think of received or treated them with even common courtesy. Government had decided that women should be employed, and the Army surgeons—unable, therefore to close the hospitals against them—determined to make their lives so unbearable that they should be forced in self-defense to leave.

It was nearly as bad post war? To qualify for pensions the nurses had to provide so, so much impossible paperwork very few of them succeeded. For instance- doctors they served under would have to be tracked down and induced to give a statement. A., some disliked the nurses so much they were not inclined to help b. Nurses could be posted at quite a few hospitals through the war c. The doctor in question could have passed away and if he did there was simply no recourse.

A few wrote books or were asked by different people to contribute to compilations. They were lambasted for doing so, the charged being they were attempting to make money from their war experiences plus were trying to make themselves ' look good'. It was dreadful! Read something not long ago by an author from this time period being uber critical of these writings! Crazy! This author said the nurses did try to make themselves look good by saying they did a ton og battling with doctors over care of patients when according to him that never happened. ( How did he know? He never said or sourced a thing. )

Sorry to keep coming back to this thread- Georgiana opens so many, many cans of worms because her writings ( and her sisters' ) helped make clear what our women did merely for the sake of caring for our men- gives you something you would hope you'd do. Or would be capable of, you know?
 
Sorry to keep coming back to this thread- Georgiana opens so many, many cans of worms because her writings ( and her sisters' ) helped make clear what our women did merely for the sake of caring for our men- gives you something you would hope you'd do. Or would be capable of, you know?

Not a problem. :smile: She was incredible- and I could only hope to be that incredible- even in the face of the daunting challenges she endured both from the enemy side and her own.
 
Nice pic of her (it's the same as @chellers pic, but this one is bigger!):

fullsize.jpg


Her sister, Jane Stewart Woolsey, mentioned Georgeanna in her book "Hospital Days." Here's Jane's pic:

fullsize.jpg


Here's one of Jane's stories about Georgeanna in her book (ETA Oh THIS is how you upload a Google Books image!):

g=PA121&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U1EZBw8oGlP8sXPCpoIzJtL1egwJA&ci=19%2C494%2C854%2C800&edge=0.png


Here's Hospital Days, if you'd like to read up on Jane's story: https://books.google.com/books?id=K...gT5-oHIBA&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
 
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