Louisa May Alcott

[NH Civil War Gal]

I have been reading her journal and letters (the ones that exist - she burnt many, if not most, of them). I live about 50 miles from Orchard House in Concord, Mass. and have been there.

I'm not surprised but I did not realize her family were part of the early New England abolitionists and that their family was part of the underground railroad. The family moved around a great deal in the same area, because poverty was always an issue until Louisa was grown up and making a living with her writing.

I was cruising along through her journal when she casually mentions, "John Brown's two daughters came to board with us today." I was - WHAT???? And that started me realizing that I'm back in the CW! Actually she mentions two or three times that his daughter's came to board with them.

In some ways her journal is very frustrating - she never mentions when the daughters leave (or other people) or what was felt or what they did - just these snippets that someone who was momentous in the country sent his daughters to them. She never explains the connection - obviously with the family's abolition work somehow.

She describes how they hid a slave in their oven to keep the slave hunters off the track.

Her family was friends with Julia Ward Howe and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

She also nursed in DC for 6 weeks during the CW and caught Typhoid Pneumonia. The matron of the hospital, she only identifies as Mrs. R, died during her stay, and Louisa was going to die but they had sent a telegram to her family and her father came down and got her and brought her home. She was in a delirium for 3 weeks and convalesced for many months.

Later in life, she met in Europe a British Dr who had been in Crimea and he blamed her ills on caholmel that was used widely for Typhoid. I think caholmel is some mercury based cathartic and if that's the case, she probably did have mercury poisoning that affected her immune system.

But she still had amazing health to pull through all that she did. I've loved her stories but had no idea of her connection to the CW till this week. I just had to take a break from general's memoirs!

 

[MaryDee]

I've read and thoroughly enjoyed her Hospital Sketches. The narrator, with the interesting name of Tribulation Periwinkle, is, of course, Louisa herself.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Her time in DC was crazy- she writes typically but it must have been as horrendous as the era she served. It's sometimes tough reading. Men ( and boys ) died at such a rate it's difficult comprehending how medical staff could deal with losses- you see most getting attached to patients.

Nice synopsis, thanks for posting! Her ' life and times ' is hard to sum up, there's so much, you managed it! Wonder if she writes as she does ( did ) because she was distractible? In ' Hospital Sketches ' she makes a point of describing various scenes- all-time favorite being one on Army mules ( fall down funny ). She just noticed things not at all in keeping with what she was writing of to begin with? Have a touch of that myself. It's indeed annoying, not staying on topic and crossing the street each time a shiny object comes into view.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

https://civilwartalk.com/threads/louisa-may-alcotts-army-mules-were-people-too.134120/#post-1530563

Here it is- liked it so much, created a thread.