Katharine Prescott Wormeley (1830–1908)

This is a 1998 paperback edition of a work first published in 1889 by Katherine Prescott Wormeley, a volunteer nurse with the U.S. Sanitary Commission, which assigned women of good standing to Hospital Transports with the Army of the Potomac during the early days of the Civil War. The book is actually a series of letters written by Wormeley to her mother and several other close friends during the time she and numerous other women worked to ease the suffering of Union and Confederate soldiers during the Peninsular Campaign. During the spring and summer of 1862, the U.S. Sanitary Commission worked together with the Quartermaster Corps of the Army to supply and man several steamships as floating hospitals. These facilities were meant to supplement the vastly overcrowded field hospitals run by the Army Medical Department. After the peninsular Campaign was over, a new Medical Director, Jonathan Letterman, was appointed to lead the Army Medical Department. He reorganized the hospital service, phasing out the need for floating hospitals. Wormeley’s letters present a clear picture of the practice of medicine during the 1860s, and provide interesting sketches of well known personalities such as Frederick Law Olmsted, and General George McClellan. Her own admirable personality also shines through her letters, albeit unintentionally. For example, Katherine, whose duties frequently required her to move from steamship to steamship in the harbor and from steamship to land based hospital and back again, turned out to be afraid of traveling in the "small boats" and the process of clambering up and down the ships ladders necessary to move around. Regardless of her fears, however, she perseveres. In this, she personifies the attitudes of her peers, calmly accepting "duty" regardless of personal discomfort.… (mais)