Posted on 11/14/2014 by Maggie MacLean
African American Nurses in the Civil War
"Nursing was not a woman's job before the Civil War, but by 1865, there were over 3,000 nurses serving the Union and Confederacy. In the North, most women nurses worked in military hospitals. So many women volunteered as Union nurses that the U.S. government hired Dorothea Dix to serve as the superintendent of women nurses. African American nurses were not included in those numbers, nor were they recognized for their service for decades to come. Some were paid; many volunteered. ...
During the Civil War, black women served as nurses in convalescent homes and U.S. government hospitals. The United States Navy also enlisted several African American women as first class boys, five of whom served as nurses on the hospital ship USS Red Rover: Alice Kennedy, Sarah Kinno, Ellen Campbell, Betsy Young and Ann Bradford Stokes.