A Confederate Nurse: Diary of Ada W.Bacot, 1860-1863

Recounts the first experience of women nurses in an American war

Although the Civil War was the first major American conflict in which women nurses played a significant role, the dearth of information about these women makes the diary of a Southern medical worker an especially important document. A Confederate Nurse records the daily experiences, hardships, and joys of Ada W. Bacot, a plantation owner and childless widow whose Southern patriotism prompted her to leave her native South Carolina to care for wounded Confederates in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Bacot’s journal sheds light on her own experiences and also on the themes that dominated the lives of Southern white women throughout the nineteenth century. A Confederate Nurse reveals the Confederate nationalism that motivated some Southern women and the work these women performed to sustain the war effort.