For many women, the Civil War offered an opportunity to use their unique skills as organizers and caregivers. Mrs. Harris first left her home at 1106 Pine Street to join others to form the Ladies’ Aid Society of Philadelphia. Not satisfied with raising money and supplies for the soldiers, Mrs. Harris decided to go to the field and distribute them.
Her good sense and fair-mindedness did not go unnoticed. She soon became the representative for many other organizations, including Penn Relief, the Patriotic Daughters of Lancaster and aid societies from the interior of Pennsylvania, as well as the Christian and Sanitary Commissions. Large quantities of goods were distributed by this good woman.
Mrs. Harris visited over one hundred hospitals of the Army of the Potomac in and around Washington. She not only served as a nurse, washing and feeding the men, but also offered them religious instruction and consolation to many of them and their families.
At the invasion of Pennsylvania, she went forward to Harrisburg, which was under threat. After three days, she returned to Philadelphia and arrived at Washington on June 30, 1863. The next three days were spent forwarding hospital stores and obtaining transportation. On July 3, she left Washington with a few supplies and reached the Gettysburg Battlefield in the ambulance that had carried wounded General Hancock to Westminster. The next week was spent amid the horrors of blood and torment, alleviating a vast number of suffering men.
At the close of the war, Mrs. Harris returned to Philadelphia after suffering from the effects of sunstroke received while assisting in field hospitals in Virginia.331
At the outset of the war, both the Union and Confederate armies forbade the enlistment of women in combat roles. A small number of women served openly and in a semi-official role, uniformed as soldiers and known to have seen combat with their units. These women were designated “vivandieres,” sometimes also known as “cantinieres,” and were recruited into European-flavored regiments known as Zouaves. These troops sported a French-inspired uniform originating during the Napoleonic Wars. The vivandiere gradually achieved an official status. Each regiment had fixed regulations for cantinieres.
A tiny number of Philadelphian women followed the soldiers as vivandieres. These included Virginia Hall of the 72nd Pennsylvania Fire Zouaves332 and Mary Tepe of the 27th and 114th Pennsylvania. Only the members of one Pennsylvania unit wore the full French Zouave uniform, were trained in Zouave drill and adhered to French military custom: Collis’s Zouaves, 114th Pennsylvania Volunteers. At the end of his three-month enlistment, Collis returned to Philadelphia to form a company known as the Zouaves D’Afrique, modeled after the elite Algerian troops of the French army. Many of the men in this company were veterans of European service.333
Mary Tepe, vivandiere of the 114th PV, Collis’s Zouaves. Known as “French Mary,” Tepe wore the unit uniform, marched and fought with the men and was wounded at Fredericksburg. She was decorated with the Kearney Cross in May 1863. GAR Museum Collection.
One custom Collis employed was the recruitment of a vivandiere. Marie, or Mary, was that woman. Born in France in 1834, she was raised by her father and immigrated to the large French community in Philadelphia after his death. Mary married Bernardo Tepe when she was twenty and was determined to join him when he enlisted in the 27th PV. Sometime during 1861, she left her husband. One veteran gave this reason: “One night some soldiers, among whom was her husband, broke into the vivandiere’s tent and stole $1,600.00. The men were afterwards punished, but the Vivandiere decided to quit the Regiment. She refused to have anything to do with her husband…[she was] requested to continue with the regiment, but her indignation was so great that she left.”334
The following year, she joined the 114th PVI at the request of Colonel Collis:
Her uniform was similar to that of the women who followed the Eagles of France. She wore a blue Zouave jacket, a short skirt, trimmed with red braid, which reached to just below the knees and red trousers over a pair of boots. She wore a man’s sailor hat turned down. She purchased a store of tobacco; cigars; hams; and other things not issued by the government and carried the whiskey in a small oval keg strapped to her shoulder. When the Regiment was not in action, she cooked, washed and mended for the men. She drew the pay of a soldier and was allowed 25 cents per day extra for hospital and headquarters services. After two years, some friction in the Paymaster’s Department about the enlistment of women stopped her pay, but did not dampen her patriotism. She continued to sell goods to the soldiers and $5 per pint for whiskey was not an unusual price.335
Marie is better known as “French Mary,” the vivandiere of the 114th Pennsylvania. She participated in most of the operation of the regiment, including combat at the Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862, where she received a bullet wound to the ankle. She received a letter (dated December 21, 1862) from Colonel Collis thanking her for her bravery.
After the Battle of Chancellorsville, Marie received the Kearny Cross for helping to organize one of the field hospitals. A member of the 114th said about the event:
We were pleased to find that quite a number of the valiant comrades of our Regiment had received medals for meritorious conduct in battle…even Marie, the vivandiere received one, but she would not wear it remarking that General Birney, her division commander, could keep it, as she did not want the present…she was a courageous woman and often got within range of the enemy’s fire while parting with the contents of her canteen among our wounded men. Her skirts were riddled by bullets during the Battle of Chancellorsville.336
Marie was also awarded a silver cup by the regimental commander, Lieutenant Colonel Cavada, that was inscribed: “To Marie, for noble conduct on the field of battle.”337
It was believed that Mary Tepe was still with the 114th in Washington, D.C., for the grand review held on May 23, 1865, followed by the mustering out of the regiment a few days later.
In later life, Marie, aged and an invalid, suffered from rheumatism and a Rebel bullet that she still carried in her left ankle. Widowed and living alone outside of Pittsburgh, the vivandiere of her youth took her own life in May 1901 by drinking poison.338
Marie was laid to rest un-mourned and forgotten, buried in an unmarked grave. Sometime ago, members of the Pittsburgh Camp #3 of the Sons of Union Veterans found her final resting place, obtained a military stone and dedicated it in a fitting ceremony. Finally, Marie received the recognition she justly deserved.339
Among the many noble women who devoted their time and service to the Union cause, and of relieving the suffering of soldiers during the Civil War, there were few who sacrificed more than Miss Hetty Jones. She was the daughter of the Reverend Horatio Gates Jones, former pastor of the Lower Merion Baptist Church, and a sister of the Judge J. Richter Jones, who was the colonel of the 58th Regiment, Pennsylvania volunteers, who was killed at the battle near Newbern, North Carolina, in May 1863.
At the beginning of the war Miss Jones helped to equip companies of troops from her own neighborhood. When she received the news of the death of her brother, she at once devoted herself to the relief of the sick and wounded. At first she spent her time at the Filbert Street Hospital in Philadelphia, caring for those brought back from the field. Her kindness was appreciated, and as a soldier once observed, “I have often seen her sit and talk away the pain and make glad the heart of the wounded.”340
Although delicate and prone to illness herself, she travelled to Fort Monroe, Virginia, to help with the care of those in need. Although she was urged by her friends to return home and regain her strength, she considered it her duty to continue on. On November 2, 1964, she started on her way to City Point, Virginia, the headquarters of the army. She attached herself to the Third Division, Second Corps Hospital, and at once secured the warm affection of the soldiers.
In her journal, she spoke about her duty, saying, “Another battle is expected; and then our poor crippled boys will need all the care that we can give. God grant that we may do something for them!”
Two days after writing this, in a chilly, leaking tent, she fell ill again. She did not want to alert her family at first, but soon, they had to be sent for. On December 21, 1864, she passed away in her leaky tent at City Point. Like the faithful soldier, she died at her post.
Her remains were laid beside those of her father and brother, Colonel John R. Jones, in Leverington Cemetery in Roxborough. A number of the convalescent soldiers from the Filbert Street Hospital in the city attended her funeral.341
Sarah Josepha Hale was born in Newport, New Hampshire, on October 24, 1788. Her intelligence and desire for education were apparent from a young age. With the help of her brother, she received a college-level education in spite of the fact she never enrolled in school. Her career as a teacher lasted only until she met a young lawyer named David Hale. They soon fell in love and married. With her husband’s support, she wrote stories for her family and then for the local newspapers. Sarah was pregnant with her fifth child when her husband died. Sarah returned to teaching and continued to write to help support her family.
In 1827, with the help of her husband’s friends, she published a book, Northwood: A Tale of New England. Although it was fiction, it was the first such book to weave the issue of slavery into the plot. John Blake of Boston planned to publish a new women’s magazine, the Ladies’ Magazine. After reading Sarah’s book, he offered her the position of editor. Sarah wanted to have a magazine that would promote the American woman. Most publications were just translated from French. Mrs. Hale wanted to use American writers with fresh ideas and to educate women on health and how to create a happy environment for their families. As her magazine progressed, she was approached by Louis Godey, a Philadelphia publisher. After the merger, Godey and Mrs. Hale forged a highly successful partnership that turned Godey’s Lady’s Book into one of the most successful enterprises of its day, with upward of 150,000 subscribers. During the Civil War, there was very little drop-off of subscribers. Mrs. Hale was aware that American women included both the North and the South. The magazine remained uncontroversial for the extent of the war. This continued a thread of continuity to the community of women. As an arbiter of taste and fashion, she influenced generations of American women throughout the country. Her success was reflected in the longevity of her role as editor. Mrs. Hale retired at eighty-nine years old.
Her contributions include being a founder of Vassar College; promoting the Women’s Medical Hospital in Philadelphia; and raising funds to preserve Bunker Hill and Mount Vernon. She is most famous for lobbying to make Thanksgiving a national holiday. This was accomplished when Lincoln announced the holiday in the middle of the Civil War. Finally, she is known as the author of “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”342
Lucretia Mott was born and raised in a Quaker community in Massachusetts, “thoroughly imbued with women’s rights” (in her words). After the death of her first child, she became more involved in her religion. By 1818, she was serving as a minister. She and her husband, James Mott, followed Elias Hicks in the “Great Separation” of 1827, opposing the more evangelical and orthodox branch of the Society of Friends.
Like many “Hicksite” Quakers, Lucretia Mott considered slavery an evil to be opposed. The Hicksites refused to wear cotton cloth, cane sugar and other goods produced by slaves. While living in Philadelphia, she became more active and, with the support of her husband, delivered speeches in favor of the abolition of slavery. In 1840, she was selected as a delegate to the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, which she found controlled by factions opposed to the membership of women. While sitting outside of the convention, Mott met a young bride by the name of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
In 1848, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, along with others, held the Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. The “Declaration of Sentiments,” written primarily by Stanton and Mott, was a deliberate parallel to the “Declaration of Independence”: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal.”
During the Civil War, Mott continued to advocate emancipation and equal rights. It was on her family’s land that Camp William Penn was located to organize and train black troops for service in the army. Lucretia Mott often spoke to the Colored Troops in camp to encourage them in their service.
After the war, she continued her involvement in causes for peace and equality through her later life. Lucretia Mott died in 1880 and was buried next to her husband in Fair Hill Quaker Burial Ground.343
Mrs. Mary Morris Husband was the granddaughter of Robert Morris, the financier of the Revolutionary War and signer of the Declaration of Independence. Her husband was a highly respected member of the Philadelphia bar. She had two sons who enlisted in the army at the beginning of the war. Although not in the best of health, she followed her desire to render aid to the suffering. She served both as a nurse and a skilled cook, first at the hospital on Twenty-second and Woods Streets, Philadelphia.
Her fear for her sons induced her to travel to the front to minister to the sick and wounded. While on the Virginia Peninsula in the summer of 1862, she received word that one of her sons was gravely ill. She hastened to nurse, and after a great struggle and frequent relapses, he rallied and began to recover.
When her son recovered, she resolved to devote herself to care for the sick and wounded in the army. She began her work on the hospital transport off Harrison’s Landing, even coming under fire from the enemy. Later, she was assigned by the Sanitary Commission to the position of superintendent of one of the transports that bore the wounded to New York.
As the war moved from the Peninsula, Mrs. Husband went to Washington and tried to obtain a pass and transportation for supplies for the army, but to no avail. Dorothea Dix, director of the Army Nurse Corps, requested her to take charge of the Camden Street Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.
A period sketch of Mary Morris Husband, the famed volunteer nurse known as “Pockets” to the soldiers. GAR Museum Collection.
Afterward, she traveled to Antietam, where the battle was still in progress. Here, at the Smoketown Hospital, she went to work nursing the wounded. She was constantly at her post in the hospital and dispensed to those who needed the delicacies and medicines they required. She made a flag for her tent by sewing on a section of calico a figure of a bottle cut out of red flannel, and the bottle flag flew, telling of the medicines dispensed there.
The men saw her as she came out of her tent, a large figure with a benevolent and motherly face. She perpetually wore an apron full of pockets, all stored full of something to benefit or amuse her “boys”: an apple, orange or perhaps a magazine or set of checkers and dominoes.
After the Battle of Chancellorsville, she went to a hospital on the north side of the Rappahannock River, where she dressed wounds all day and slept in an ambulance. Here she remained until forced north with the army by Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania in June and July 1863.
Mrs. Husband passed a few anxious days in Philadelphia trying to obtain permission to travel to Gettysburg. Determined to go to the front to aid her soldier boys, she reached the battlefield on the morning of July 4 by way of Westminster in General Meade’s mail wagon. She labored there until she was attacked by fever and carried back home to Philadelphia.
Mrs. Husband continued her service until the end of the war. Whether as matron at Camp Parole in Annapolis or taking charge of a diet kitchen at City Point, her duties remained arduous, but she made no complaint.
At the end of the war, Mrs. Husband was gratified by the sight of the army marching through Richmond. As they passed, they recognized her, and hundreds of voices rang out “Hurrah for Mother Husband!”
She passed away in 1894 and was laid to rest in Laurel Hill Cemetery. Her monument reads, “Here lies all that was mortal of one whom all delighted to honor.”344
Anna Maria Ross was a native of Philadelphia. She spent her entire adult life engaged in earnest activity in works of benevolence and Christian kindness on behalf of the needy and suffering. Her many good works during the Civil War have given her claim to the title of the “Soldier’s Friend.”
Her work for the soldiers was chiefly performed in connection with the Cooper Shop Hospital and the famous Cooper Shop Refreshment Saloon. Miss Ross was appointed principal of the hospital and devoted herself to it with an energy that never wavered. She was always concerned with the well-being of those committed to her charge. And if the donation box at the entrance of the hospital chanced to be empty, she made up the difference from her own purse.
The spring of 1863 found Miss Ross still occupied with her labors at the hospital. In addition, she was promoting a large fair for the purpose of aiding in the establishment of a permanent home for discharged soldiers who were unable to do active labor. She traveled throughout Pennsylvania and New Jersey to obtain assistance in this important undertaking. In June, the fair was held and was a great success, and a large sum was added to the fund previously obtained.
A contemporary photo of the beloved volunteer nurse Anna M. Ross, who worked for the relief of the soldiers and sacrificed her health in their cause, dying of exhaustion on the day the Soldiers’ Home was opened. GAR Museum Collection.
Her work bore fruit, and soon a suitable building had been obtained, and many busy days were occupied finishing the task. But as her friends assembled at the dedication of the Soldiers’ Home, Miss Ross passed away the very same day. Her funeral was attended by a large and sorrowful crowd. She was laid to rest in the American Mechanics Cemetery. The tomb of white marble with a relief represents a female figure ministering to a soldier. Her grave was later removed to Lawnview Cemetery.
She was so esteemed by the soldiers that the veterans of Grand Army Post #94 named their post after her: Anna M. Ross Post.345
Mrs. Mary Lee was born in the north of Ireland of Scotch parentage but came with her parents to the United States.
At the outset of the Civil War, one of her sons enlisted in the Pennsylvania Reserve Corps, and afterward in the 72nd Pennsylvania Volunteers, which served throughout the war. Her daughter Amanda served with her as a volunteer nurse.
Mrs. Lee wanted to do something for the soldiers when they were traveling to the front in April 1861. She was one of the first to help with the organization of the Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon. At the firing of the signal gun, called “Fort Brown,” that announced that troops were on their way to Philadelphia, Mrs. Lee and her co-workers rushed to the Union Refreshment Saloon, near the navy yard, and prepared an ample meal for the soldiers, caring at the same time for any sick or wounded among them.
She had heard of the sufferings endured by the soldiers at the front and in hospitals remote from the cities, and she desired to go and minister to them. As a skilled cook, admirable nurse and excellent manager, she traveled on a hospital transport, the Spaulding, one of the steamers assigned to the United States Sanitary Commission. She arrived at Harrison Landing on the Peninsula with stores of supplies from the Union Volunteer Refreshment Committee and her personal friends. Here, she joined others in caring for the afflicted.
After a brief visit home, she started back to Washington on September 5, 1862. Finding that the army was just then moving west to Maryland and learning that a battle was impending, she decided to rejoin the troops at the front. It was almost impossible to obtain transportation, but through the intercession of Captain Gleason of the 71st Pennsylvania Volunteers, she was permitted to follow with her stores in a forage wagon and arrived at the rear of the army the night before the Battle of Antietam. The battle commenced at dawn on September 17, and during the progress, she was stationed on the Sharpsburg Road, where she had her supplies and large tubs of water, one to bathe and bind the wounds and the other to refresh anyone suffering from thirst. During the fighting, she was famed for having made hot apple dumplings to give to the men. Mrs. Lee stayed at the area hospitals for nearly three months.
In December, Mrs. Lee was present for the Battle of Fredericksburg. She then returned home for a short time before traveling back to the front to the hospital of the Second Corps, where she remained until spring. Here she cared for the wounded after the Battle of Chancellorsville. In July, she arrived at Gettysburg four days after the battle, remaining there for two months.
Mrs. Lee continued to devote her time for the duration of the war. She returned home in the middle of May 1865 and worked ceaselessly to the last final work of the Union Volunteer Refreshment Saloon, where she had begun her labors for the soldiers.
She died in 1893 and was buried at the Ebenezer Methodist Churchyard. The burial ground was removed to Arlington Cemetery, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, and a proper marker was placed in 1998.346
Mrs. Hutter was the wife of Reverend Dr. E.W. Hutter the minister of St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church, Philadelphia. She was born in Lebanon, Pennsylvania.
During the war, Mrs. Hutter frequently went to the front, rendering valuable service to the suffering as a nurse. She was the first woman to arrive at the battlefield of Bull Run and to go to Gettysburg, receiving permission from President Lincoln and going in a special railroad car.
She took a conspicuous role in the Great Sanitary Fair held in Philadelphia in 1864 and is credited with having collected a great amount of money for that purpose. Among her many friends were Presidents Lincoln and Grant, Secretary Stanton, Governor Curtin, General Meade and many others.
In 1867, she was appointed inspector of the Soldier’s Orphan Schools by Governor Geary; she was the only woman up to that time to receive such a commission. She was buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery.347
Charlotte Forten-Grimke was born in Philadelphia and belonged to the prominent African American Forten-Purvis family. Her family members were activists for Black causes, and Charlotte also proved to be an active leader of the early civil rights movement. Her parents were Robert Bridges Forten and Mary Woods Forten. Her father and his brother-in-law, Robert Purvis, were key members of the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee, an antislavery assistance network for runaway slaves. Her mother worked in the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. Charlotte’s grandfather was James Forten Sr., a successful abolitionist and wealthy sail-maker in Philadelphia.
Charlotte was sent in 1854 to Higginson Grammar School in Salem, Massachusetts, where she was the first nonwhite student. After Higginson, she attended the Normal School in Salem. She became a noted advocate for emancipation, a poet, educator and abolitionist. After graduation, Charlotte turned to teaching. She returned home to Philadelphia due to a case of tuberculosis.
During the Civil War, she was the first black teacher to serve in the Sea Islands mission at St. Helena, South Carolina, to teach freed slaves. She worked for the Philadelphia-based Port Royal Relief Association, a movement inspired by the Quakers. While in South Carolina, she touched many lives, chronicling this period in a series of essays, Life on the Sea Islands, which was published in Atlantic Monthly in the May and June issues of 1864.348
She wed Francis Grimke, nephew of the crusading abolitionist Grimke sisters, in December 1878 at the age of forty-one. Charlotte aided her husband in his ministry at the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., and organized a women’s missionary group. She died in 1914.349
Anna E. Dickinson was born in Philadelphia in 1842. Her father was a Philadelphia merchant, and her mother belonged to an aristocratic Philadelphia family. Both parents were devout Quakers. Her father, an abolitionist, died from a heart attack after delivering a passionate antislavery speech in 1844 when Anna was two years old. As a result of his death, the family lost their property and found itself in reduced financial circumstances.
Anna grew into a restless, willful, yet imaginative child who caused her family much anxiety. Her childhood was not an easy one. Some of her schoolmates made fun of her poor clothes, and this drove her to strive even harder to better herself. Anna’s ambition and stubbornness were traits that fueled her determination. She had a talent for rhetoric and on one occasion even scrubbed sidewalks for twenty-five cents so she could hear Wendell Phillips lecture on the “Lost Arts.”
In 1860, she gave her first speech on “Woman’s Rights and Wrongs” before the Association of Progressive Friends. After this she turned to the lecture circuit. She focused her attention to abolition and shared the stage with many notables such as Frederick Douglass.
Anna was a staunch supporter of the Colored Troops during the Civil War and delivered an address to the black community at the time of Gettysburg to inspire enlistments. On that day, she shared the podium with Frederick Douglass and Republican congressman Judge William Kelley. She also visited Camp William Penn and spoke to the troops there, praising their efforts in the cause of Union and emancipation.
Certainly the greatest honor of her life was an invitation to address Congress in the House of Representatives on January 16, 1864. Assembled to hear her was one of the most illustrious audiences that ever met in Washington. President Lincoln, members of Congress, foreign diplomats and much of Washington society attended to hear the twenty-year-old. The proceeds of this lecture were over $1,000, which were donated to the National Freedmen’s Relief Society.350
Dickinson continued to work unceasingly for social justice and reform during her long lifetime. She died in 1932, her impact on abolition, the women’s rights movement and the ultimate success of the Union in the Civil War assured to history. Unfortunately, her role has now been largely forgotten.351
