-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Some of the History I never knew about but should have - from
my home town in central Ohio
speedy
gunslinger plants one on you
Two Star Member
Posts: 15490
Mary Ann Bickerdyke
« on: Yesterday at 07:56:30 AM »
Quote
Mary Ann Bickerdyke (July 19, 1817 – November 8, 1901), also known as
Mother Bickerdyke, was a hospital administrator for Union soldiers
during the American Civil War.
She was born in Knox County, Ohio, to Hiram Ball and Annie Rodgers Ball.
She later moved to Galesburg, Illinois.
After the outbreak of the Civil War, she joined a field hospital at Fort
Donelson, working alongside Mary J. Stafford. Bickerdyke also worked
closely with Eliza Emily Chappell Porter of the Northwest Sanitary
Commission. She later worked on the first hospital boat. During the war,
she became chief of nursing under the command of General Ulysses S.
Grant, and served at the Battle of Vicksburg. When his staff complained
about the outspoken, insubordinate female nurse who consistently
disregarded the army's red tape and military procedures, Union Gen.
William T. Sherman threw up his hands and exclaimed, "She ranks me. I
can't do a thing in the world."[1] Bickerdyke was a nurse who ran
roughshod over anyone who stood in the way of her self-appointed duties.
She was known affectionately to her "boys", the grateful enlisted men,
as "Mother" Bickerdyke. When a surgeon questioned her authority to take
some action, she replied, "On the authority of Lord God Almighty, have
you anything that outranks that?"[2]
Mother Bickerdyke became the best known, most colorful, and probably
most resourceful Civil War nurse. Widowed two years before the war
began, she supported herself and her two half-grown sons by practicing
as a "botanic Physician" in Galesburg, Illinois. When a young Union
volunteer physician wrote home about the filthy, chaotic military
hospitals at Cairo, Illinois, Galesburg's citizens collected $500 worth
of supplies and selected Bickerdyke to deliver them (no one else would go).
She stayed in Cairo as an unofficial nurse, and through her unbridled
energy and dedication she organized the hospitals and gained Grant's
appreciation. Grant sanctioned her efforts, and when his army moved down
the Mississippi, Bickerdyke went too, setting up hospitals where they
were needed. Sherman was especially fond of this volunteer nurse who
followed the western armies, and supposedly she was the only woman he
would allow in his camp. By the end of the war, with the help of the
U.S. Sanitary Commission, Mother Bickerdyke had built 300 hospitals and
aided the wounded on 19 battlefields including the Battle of Shiloh and
Sherman's March to the Sea.
"Mother" Bickerdyke was so loved by the army that the soldiers would
cheer her as they would a general when she appeared. At Sherman's
request, she rode at the head of the XV Corps in the Grand Review in
Washington at the end of the war.
After the war ended, she worked for the Salvation Army in San Francisco,
and became an attorney, helping Union veterans with legal issues. She
ran a hotel in Salina, Kansas for a time. She received a special pension
of $25 a month from Congress in 1886, and retired to Bunker Hill,
Kansas. She died peacefully after a minor stroke.
A statue of her was erected in Galesburg, and a hospital boat and a
liberty ship, the Mary Bickerdyke,[3] were named after her.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Bickerdyke
Report to moderator Logged
All comments posted by speedy are merely opinions. These opinions should
not be construed in any manner which suggest that they are threatening.
All posts are in jest and protected by Freedom of Speech. As such, not
subject to subpoena, criminal charges, civil charges and the like.
--
Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups.
For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum
* Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/
* It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls.
* Read the latest breaking news, and more.
