Nurses in the Civil War

Clara Barton

Probably the name most remembered as a nurse during the Civil War is that of Clara Barton.  Her fame resulted in many locations and  structures being named after her.  Barton County, Kansas is named after Clara Barton, although she had no specific connection with Kansas.  However, many Civil War Veterans homesteaded in Kansas, and it may have been such a soldier who suggested her name for the county.  

At the time of the outbreak of the Civil War, much doctoring was done in homes by family members.  There were only about 150 hospitals in the entire nation at the time the War began.

Dorothea Dix

Another significant woman is Dorothea Dix, who recruited nurses but demanded very specific qualifications:  at least 30 years old, plain looking, dressed in brown or black, and free of curls, jewelry, or hoops.  Her nurses were paid 40 cents a day, plus rations, housing, and transportation.  (Male nurses received $20.50 a month, plus other benefits.)

Both of these women provided significant leadership in establishing the needed organization to the care of Civil War Soldiers.  Dix was eager to employ her organizational skills, but her exacting standards annoyed hospital administrators and nurses, and Sec. of War Stanton removed Dix from that role to avoid the friction she caused. 

Mary Ann Bickerdyke

Mary Ann Bickerdyke was especially skilled as a nurse, having been trained in botanic and homeopathis medicine, as well as having been a private-duty nurse.  She was 45 at the start of the war and gained the respect of the high-ranking officers, acquiring the nickname of the "Cyclone in Calico" somewhere along the way.

Other women, whose names were well known at the time, in addition to thousands of women whose names are long forgotten, simply showed up to serve.  The three women described in this blog are among those particularly recognized for providing the much needed organization for care for wounded soldiers.  However, while the soldiers' wounds needed that care, it was sickness that created the greatest danger to Civil War soldiers.

The thousands of women who came to tend the sick and wounded allowed many of those soldiers to recover and return to civilian life following the War.

The Farmington Cemetery in Macksville, Kansas has 49 Civil War Graves--48 men and one woman.  These are the fortunate who survived the war and came to Kansas at some time later in their lives.  Most Civil War soldiers were between the ages of 18 and 29, and if they survived the disease and injury of the war, they had years ahead of them.

Photo Credit:  Lyn Fenwick

Mary C. Hill, the lone women that is buried in Farmington Cemetery in Macksville, Kansas, after having served in the Civil War, was also young.  She was an Army nurse from 1861 to 1865, beginning her military service at the age of 17.  According to the 1900 census, she married Paul H. Hill in 1862.  Whether they met during the war, fell in love, and married, or they were sweethearts and she became a nurse in order to be near him during the fighting, I do not know.  It was not unusual for women to become nurses in order to be near their family members.

Louisa May Alcott

Many of you will remember that in "Little Women," a telegraph arrived, which read:  "Mrs. March:  Your husband is very ill.  Come at once."  Mrs. March does not hesitate.

She says, "...I must go prepared for nursing.  Hospital stores are not always good.  Beth, go and ask Mr. Laurence for a couple of bottles of old wine:  I'm not too proud to beg for father; he shall have the best of everything."  Those of you who are fans of "Little Women" will probably remember Jo's sacrifice for her father's care.  After having sold her beautiful hair for $25, she tells her mother, "That's my contribution towards making father comfortable and bringing him home."  

"Little Women" shares in fiction the lack of government provisions for the sick and wounded Union soldiers, and the response of wives and family to step forward to provide what was needed.  In real life, Louisa May Alcott was one of those women who became briefly a Civil War nurse.

 

Honoring Those Who Served

 

Cemetery in Macksville, Kansas
Photo Credit:  Larry Fenwick

Since we returned to the farm, my husband has marched with the VFW on Memorial Day.  Over the years the veterans marching have changed, with the W.W. II veterans gradually disappearing from the group.  This year the marchers were reduced in number by the death of a Viet Nam Veteran normally a part of their group, who passed away recently.  It was a challenge to assemble marchers, at a time when fewer local men and women choose to join the military, but as it turned out, the largest group in quite a while arrived on a damp morning, assembling in the mist and drizzle in hopes that by 10 o'clock the weather would clear.

In past years I had dropped my husband off and driven to the cemetery to visit the graves of my many ancestors buried there.  This year I waited to take him to the cemetery, and it gave me the opportunity to watch the men and one woman prepare for the ceremony.  I had not realized the effort taken to polish up a group of veterans who haven't drilled in decades, except for the occasional participation on Memorial Day.

To be honest, they looked a little ragged.  The variety in height ranged from short to tall, and the belts tightened around their waists would have been several inches shorter when they were on active duty, but as they stood there in the damp chill doing their best to drill as they had years before, I thought they looked like heroes.

Last year it poured rain on Memorial Day, and the ceremony was delayed until the following Saturday.  Despite the drizzle, this year they were determined to march, crossing their fingers that the weather would clear.  It didn't.  They drove to the cemetery and began to assemble, surprised by the crowd waiting in the rain to watch the ceremony.  Instead of clearing, the drizzle had increased.

Reluctantly, they decided to cancel the ceremony.  The sound system had been prepared, and there was worry about the danger of combining electricity with drizzle and electrical cords on wet grass.  The minister, under the tent where the electrical equipment was assembled out of the rain, delivered a prayer after the decision not to carry out the program was announced.  People began to head toward their cars.

The veterans were disappointed.  The honor guard had failed to march only twice before, and one of those times was the previous year when they did march on Saturday.  It is a duty taken seriously, a community tradition that is expected.  Two hours later, the weather had cleared enough that they could have marched.  However, the town had planned a nice lunch and interfering with that would have been a different disappointment. 

Those who had come to the cemetery expecting the traditional ceremony may have been disappointed, after waiting in the drizzle themselves.  It certainly seemed unfair to everyone that Mother Nature had spoiled the tradition two years in a row.

A Guest Post by Misty Beck

After posting the blog remembering Memorial Days from the past, I asked my cousin, Misty Beck, if she would share as a comment an amusing story about how my Uncle Arthur taught her the tradition of decorating graves.  I fear that some of you aren't taking time to read the comments that visitors post, which are certainly worth reading.  In case you missed reading Misty's, I asked her if I could share her story for Memorial Weekend.  I've added this picture of me with my parents, decorating my grandparents' grave when I was about the age that Misty describes in her Guest Post.

Misty's Comment:
My grandparents (Arthur and Wilma, in Lyn's photograph posted May 10, 2012, 4th man from left and 4th woman from left) were adamant that when I was a child in the late 70s and early 80s, that I learn about the meaning of Memorial Day.  But, more importantly, my granddad insisted that I know where all of the family graves were located.  I remember every year as a child loading up the boxes of flowers (replaced with the ease of reusable plastic flowers in their later years) and heading to the cemeteries.

Our route included Farmington at Macksville, Byers (Naron), and Iuka.  At the cemetery, I would sit in the back of the pickup, or if we were in the car on the trunk--they didn't worry so much about safety back then. My granddad would drive, and when I found a family grave, I had to knock on the back glass.  He would stop, and then I had to show him where the grave was and tell him who was buried there.  This probably started when I was 3 years old.  My granddad died when I was 8, but I have very vivid memories of our trips to the cemeteries and how important it was to him that I know where those graves were.

While locations were important to my granddad, my grandmother found other things important.  Every year as we finished at the last cemetery (Iuka), she would remind me that we had one more set of flowers to put out.  See, my dad was adopted by my grandparents, because his biological mother died when he was born and his biological father couldn't take care of him.  Her grave was our last stop every year, because my grandmother always said we needed to thank his birth mother because she gave my dad to my grandparents.  And, if she hadn't, they wouldn't have me.  Of course, that was my grandmother's way of making it important to me.

I could probably still find all of the graves but must admit my Memorial Weekend pilgrimage is much shorter.  I just visit one cemetery to decorate our family graves there, but I am thankful that my grandparents took the time and energy to educate me on these great family traditions.  And, as I leave the Iuka cemetery every year, I put a small bunch of flowers on my dad's biological mom's grave...just like Gram always insisted.  

Memorial Day at Farmington Cemetery

When I was a child, Memorial Day was an occasion for honoring America's fallen soldiers and visiting graves of ancestors.  Tin cans and canning jars were covered with tin foil, around which a bow was tied to create a vase to hold spring flowers from the garden or peonies ordered from the grocery store and kept in the bottom of the refrigerator to keep the buds from opening too early.  Memorial morning men dressed in suits and ties, and women wore their Sunday dresses with hats and gloves to go to the cemetery to put flowers on the graves.  It was important to arrive early enough to get the graves decorated with time to stroll through the cemetery admiring the decorations and visiting with friends and neighbors, especially those who now lived out of town and returned for the annual pilgrimage to decorate the graves.  The picture is of my parents, aunts, and uncles in about 1949.

About 10 o'clock the high school band, playing patriotic songs, would march from the school to the cemetery, and a ceremony would be held at the Memorial for veterans, with two of the best young trumpeters slipping away to hide behind large gravestones or trees to echo the playing of Taps.  Memorial Day was always May 30th, and no one considered going to the lake or the beach.  It was a day to remember the dead, not a day for recreation.  When the memorial service ended, the band marched away, only going as far as the end of the cemetery before students raced to their parents' cars to shed the hot, wool band uniforms.  The crowd gradually disbursed, many gathering for large family dinners.  Afterward, when the women retired to the kitchen to wash dishes and gossip and the men found comfortable chairs in the living room where they could intermittently visit and nap, the kids would slip away to meet their friends at the swimming pool, which opened for the summer season that afternoon.  I am the girl with the tenor saxophone, marching in one of those hot wool band uniforms.

Those days have disappeared.  With Memorial Day turned into a holiday weekend, graves are still decorated at the Farmington Cemetery, but the flowers are primarily silk and the decorating is often done early so people can travel somewhere for the long weekend.  Jeans are typically worn for the practical business of anchoring the silk flower arrangements in the soil to stay in place through the weekend in the likely chance of strong spring winds.  There is still a VFW honor guard that marches on Memorial Day, but the music is provided by a CD player rather than the high school band.  People do linger for a while to visit after the memorial services, but the crowd dwindles each year, it seems.  There are still some families that have traditional dinners, and kids whose parents have not taken them to the lake still gather at the swimming pool, if it is the opening day of the summer.  My husband is one of the men in the VFW honor guard at the "new" Veterans' Memorial.

I used to tease my mother-in-law not so many years ago when she would ask us to drive her through the cemetery, where she would comment as we passed by the graves, speaking of those buried there as if she were pointing out residences along the streets of the town.  Now she occupies one of those cemetery lots we once drove past, and my husband and I find ourselves driving through the cemetery, speaking of friends and parents of friends buried there, just as she once did.  Since doing the research about Isaac's neighbors from the late 1800s, I now have several more graves whose occupants I almost feel that I know, and I give Isaac's old neighbors a nod as we drive by.  This is the "old" Veterans' Memorial to which our high school band once led the honor guard.







Finding Isaac's Grave

In early days, when bodies were not embalmed, funerals were held within a day or two of death. Town cemeteries were too far away to travel by wagon or buggy, so communities created country cemeteries. The land was often donated, sometimes by the family who first needed to bury one of their own. These country cemeteries dot the Kansas landscape, some containing only a few old graves, others still in active use.

About four miles north of Isaac's timber claim was Neeland's Cemetery. It had originally been named the Livingston Cemetery for the fledgling town of Livingston, but many people referred to it by the name of the family who had donated the land for the cemetery, and today, that is the name by which it is known. Neeland's Cemetery began when a workman for Neeland's Ranch died and was buried in their pasture. Following that burial, the family donated three acres for a neighborhood cemetery. I had visited Neeland's with my parents when I was a child, and I remembered the interesting old gravestones I had seen there, many of them dating back to the 1800s.

Gravestones are genealogy records chiseled in stone. One particular stone in Neeland's tells the tragic story of the collapse of a sod dugout's roof during heavy rains. Nick Davison and his wife Mary were early settlers in the community, and soon after they arrived a daughter they named Beuna Vista was born. Less than five years later, another daughter was born, and she was named Bessie. Eighteen days after her birth, the weight of the rain soaked sod roof caused the ridge pole to snap, and the collapsed mud smothered the baby and her four-year-old sister. Memorialized on the beautiful stone are these two sisters and a third daughter whose life was also brief. Eight sons were born to Nick and Mary, but no other daughters.

Neeland's continues to be the final resting place for departed loved ones today. A symbolic modern stone tells its own tragic story of a young father who died in an accident, leaving behind his widow and three young children, the tragedy depicted with a pair of hands tenderly holding three little birds.

When I began searching for Isaac's grave, I considered several possibilities. The closest cemetery to Isaac's homestead was Naron cemetery in Pratt County, only about two miles from his home and the burial place of several of his neighbors. St. John was a possibility, because it was the county seat, where Isaac shopped, banked, marketed his crops, and attended farmers' meetings. With no family living close to him, it seemed reasonable that he might have chosen the county seat. Farmington Cemetery in Macksville is where my ancestors are buried, and Isaac was friendly with all of them, along with some other neighbors buried there, so that was also a possibility. And, there was Neeland's.

Isaac mentioned several funerals in his journal, with most of the burials in either Naron or Neeland's. His Probate Records include early claims submitted by the mortician and the casket maker, but only in the final accounting when his estate closed did the three dollar expense of his burial plot finally appear, with no indication of the specific cemetery. Because there was no claim for a gravestone, I assumed that Isaac was probably buried in an unmarked grave. The necessity of holding funerals soon after death meant that bodies were rarely transported any great distance, so I decided to begin my search at Naron and Neeland's, which were the two closest cemeteries.

The names of those buried in Naron are available online, but I found no listing for Isaac. There was no complete listing online for the Neeland's Cemetery, so I began inquiring who the members of the cemetery board were. With just a few phone calls, I reached one of the board members to ask if there was a record of Isaac being buried there. He was. Both she and I assumed his was one of several old graves in that cemetery that are unmarked, but she described the location of his grave, according to their records, and my husband and I went to see what we could find.

It was a cold December day, and I had been told that Isaac was buried in the fourth row, the second lot to the south of the driveway. We counted the rows, but in an old cemetery it is often difficult to determine exactly what placement of stones represents a row. We settled on what we thought was the correct row and I began pacing off fifteen feet from the edge of the tire ruts that serve as a driveway, since she had said that the lots were fifteen feet square. After fifteen steps I stopped, disappointed to see an empty space in front of me. "It should be about here," I told my husband. "I guess Isaac is buried somewhere in this empty area."

"Look beside you," he told me. To my left and about a half a pace behind me, there was Isaac's stone--a simple square column with engraving on the top to resemble a fringed cloth spread over the column. The carved letters were worn by age, but they clearly read, "I.B. Werner, Died March 21, 1895, Aged 51." The next day we returned with a spray of holly to decorate Isaac's grave, and each Memorial when we remember family with flowers, we stop by Neeland's Cemetery to place an arrangement on Isaac's grave. Perhaps his neighbors brought flowers to Isaac's grave for a while after his death, but for decades he had been a forgotten man. At last, Isaac is remembered.