Cornelia Hancock, Civil War Nurse
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Georgiann Baldino brings the captivating tale of Civil War nurse, Cornelia Hancock, to life. Miss Hancock's letters provide the basis for this program. Hancock exchanged a quiet Quaker life for the hardship and carnage of battle. She risked everything to participate in America's struggle for a new birth of freedom.
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Cornelia Hancock, Civil War Nurse
- 1. Cornelia Hancock Civil War Nurse and a Soldier’s Friend
- 2. Ancestral Home, Hancock’s Bridge, NJ
- 3. Alloway’s Creek, Hancock’s Bridge, NJ
- 4. LC-B811-491 Wounded Union Soldiers waiting to be captured by the South, July 1862
- 5. Union View of Pickett’s Charge, Gettysburg, PA
- 6. 20,000 soldiers of both armies lay wounded.
- 7. LC-DIG-cwpb-03837 Group of Surgeons
- 8. Surgeons preferred Catholic nuns to secular nurses.
- 9. LC-B8184-7964-A Gettysburg, A Harvest of Death
- 10. LC-DIG-cwpb-03790 Crew demonstrates removal of wounded soldiers from the field.
- 12. Fallen Artillery Man, LA Monument, Gettysburg, PA
- 14. Field Ambulances, Park of Army Wagons LC-B811-2585A
- 15. Open-air surgery National Archives, Camp Letterman www.nps.gov/archive/gett
- 16. Field Tourniquet Total Civil War Casualties (killed, missing and wounded) 702,000 Union 621,000 Confederate Self-Made in America Exhibit Photo from Gettysburg Museum
- 17. Surgery Tools from the Gettysburg, PA Museum
- 18. Hardtack biscuit Courtesy of the Self-Made in America Exhibit
- 19. A Group of Contrabands LC-USZ62-57025
- 20. February – April 1864, Brandy Station, VA LC-B817- 7301 According to a researcher and this Library of Congress photograph, Cornelia Hancock stands on the right in front of tent.
- 21. LC-USZ62-94430 Group of provost guards at headquarters, Army of the Potomac
- 22. LC-DIG-cwpb-01195 Fredericksburg, VA, Nurses and Officers of the U.S. Sanitary Commission
- 23. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's staff at City Point, VA LC-B811-3402A
- 24. General Grant June, 1864, Cold Harbor, VA National Archive 111-B-36
- 25. Federal troops occupying line of breastworks North Anna River, VA LC-B811-0756A
- 26. Cornelia Hancock late in life wearing her medals. Photo Courtesy of the Salem County, NJ Historical Society
Editor's Notes
- Cornelia Hancock did not meet the Army’s requirements for female nurses. Yet she found her way around the regulations and served for nearly two years. Most women served in northern cities or well to the rear. Cornelia was determined to live and work near the front.
- She was born in southern New Jersey in 1840.
- She grew up in Hancock’s Bridge near a tidewater marsh.
- The first two years of the war she heard tales of butchery at the front. In July of 1862 her brother Will, her male cousins and friends enlisted. Anxiety for their safety made her “frantic to follow.” She confided her determination to her brother-in-law Dr. Henry Child of Philadelphia. He promised to alert her at the first opportunity to go.
- Gettysburg was fought July 1 thru 3, 1863. The 12 th New Jersey regiment was in the thick of fighting during Pickett’s Charge.
- Some of the first women to arrive from the outside were Sisters of Charity from a nearby town in Maryland.
- 51,000 casualties: 28,000 Confederates and 21,000 Union were killed, missing or wounded.
- Cornelia arrived at the field hospital July 7, 1863.
- When surgeons operated in the open air, the men waiting in line for their turn to be hoisted on the table were not spared the sights and sounds.
- At the end of July the stores gave out. Cornelia had nothing to feed the men except hardtack and pour coffee.
- After Gettysburg Cornelia served at the “contraband” camp for former slaves. The camp, hospital and orphanage was located just north of Washington, D.C.
- Winter camp was a dangerous place to be. Outbreaks of measles, mumps and other childhood diseases were hard to treat due to the lack of shelter and poor diets. The shocking filth of Army camps brought outbreaks of dysentery and typhoid.