country. She found her first work in nursing soldiers who had been wounded by the Baltimore mob.[1] Upon June 10, 1861, she received from the War Department, Simon Cameron at that time its head, an appointment as the Government Superintendent of Women Nurses. Secretary Stanton, succeeding him, ratified this appointment, thus placing her in an extraordinary and exceptional position, imposing numerous and onerous duties, among them that of hospital visitation, distributing supplies, managing ambulances, adjusting disputes, etc. But while appointed to this office by the Government, Miss Dix found herself as a member of a disfranchised class, in a position of authority without the power of enforcing obedience, and the subject of jealousy among hospital surgeons, which largely militated against the efficiency of her work.[2]
ELIZABETH BLACKWELL, M. D.
the sanitary commission.
It has been computed that since the historic period, fourteen thousand millions of human beings have fallen in the wars which men have waged against each other. From careful statistics it has also been estimated that four-fifths of this loss of life has been due to privation, exposure, and want of care. At an early day the mortality from sickness was evidently far greater than the above estimate; as late as the Crimean War, this mortality reached seven-eighths of the whole number of deaths. Military surgery was formerly but little understood. The wounded and sick of an army were indebted to the chance aid of friend or stranger, or were left to perish from neglect. Nothing has ever been held so cheap as human life, unless, indeed, it were human rights. But even from times of antiquity we read of women, sometimes of noble birth, who followed the
- ↑ But as early as she was thus engaged, one woman had already preceded her. When the first blood of the war was shed by the attack upon the Massachusetts troops passing through Baltimore that memorable April 19, 1861, but one person in the whole city was found to offer them shelter and aid. Ann Manley, a woman belonging to what is called the outcast class, with a pity as divine as that of the woman who anointed the feet of our Lord and wiped them with the hair of her head-took the disabled soldiers into her own house, and at the hazard of her life, bound up their wounds. In making up His jewels at the last great day, will not the Lord say of her as of one of old, "She has loved much, and much is forgiven her?"
- ↑ There was no penalty for disobedience, and persons disaffected, forgetful, or idle, might refuse or neglect to obey with impunity. It indeed seems most wonderful—almost miraculous-that under such circumstances, such a vast amount of good was done. Had she not accomplished half so much, she still would richly have deserved that highest of plaudits, "Well done, good and faithful servant!"—Woman's Work in the Civil War.
