Mapping Care Project: The History of Black Nurses in Chicago

Black Nurses During the Civil War

Harriet Tubman and Susie King Taylor both served as nurses during the Civil War. Taylor escaped slavery in 1862 and, at the age of fourteen, she opened and ran a school for freed African Americans. In the course of her work, she met and married a Black officer in the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops Regiment. She moved with the regiment for the next three years, providing nursing care to the Black soldiers who suffered from battle injuries and infectious diseases, but rarely received treatment from white military doctors. Taylor, who was never paid for her services, published a memoir of her experiences called Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33rd United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S.C. Volunteers.1

Harriet Tubman is famous for her roles as a conductor on the Underground Railroad and as a general and spy for the Union Army. But Tubman also served as a nurse during the war, providing care at different times and places for formerly enslaved Black people and Black soldiers.2

Besides these well-known women, many Black men and women served as contract nurses during the Civil War, meaning that they worked for the government as civilians and were not enlisted in the military. Many Black nurses were identified as “contraband,” the term used to describe enslaved people who escaped to Union military positions. Historians have worked to uncover the stories of these Black people whose service was neglected or lost to history. Some records indicate that 181 Black men and women served in eleven hospitals.3 Additional records show that hundreds of Black women worked as nurses, cooks, and washerwomen in Union military hospitals located across the South.

Researchers in the 1990’s uncovered that Black nurses also served in the Navy during the Civil War. Numerous men and women of African descent served as crew members and medical staff on the U.S.S. Red Rover, the first-ever U.S. Navy hospital ship. Black people were recruited to work on the ship in part because white members of the medical community at the time believed that Black people were somehow naturally immune to certain widespread diseases. Almost all of the Black women on the Rover were not enlisted in the Navy but were instead civilian employees of the hospital. They were listed with the job of “nurse” or “laundress” and likely performed a variety of nursing and patient care duties.



Ann Bradford Stokes was the only known exception because pension records show that she was officially enlisted in the Navy. She served on the ship from January 1863 until October 1864 alongside Gilbert Stokes, the man who would become her husband. Stokes may have been the first woman of any race to claim a pension for nursing service in the military.

By nursing sick and wounded soldiers, the staff of the U.S.S. Red Rover allowed the Union Army to continue campaigns along the Mississippi River that were crucial for winning the Civil War. 4

 

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