Fwd: Some of the History I never knew about but should have - from my home town in central Ohio

-------- Original Message --------

Subject:	Some of the History I never knew about but should have - from my home town in central Ohio

speedy gunslinger plants one on you Two Star Member   Posts: 15490   Mary Ann Bickerdyke « on: Yesterday at 07:56:30 AM » Quote Mary Ann Bickerdyke (July 19, 1817 – November 8, 1901), also known as  Mother Bickerdyke, was a hospital administrator for Union soldiers  during the American Civil War.  She was born in Knox County, Ohio, to Hiram Ball and Annie Rodgers Ball.  She later moved to Galesburg, Illinois.  After the outbreak of the Civil War, she joined a field hospital at Fort  Donelson, working alongside Mary J. Stafford. Bickerdyke also worked  closely with Eliza Emily Chappell Porter of the Northwest Sanitary  Commission. She later worked on the first hospital boat. During the war,  she became chief of nursing under the command of General Ulysses S.  Grant, and served at the Battle of Vicksburg. When his staff complained  about the outspoken, insubordinate female nurse who consistently  disregarded the army's red tape and military procedures, Union Gen.  William T. Sherman threw up his hands and exclaimed, "She ranks me. I  can't do a thing in the world."[1] Bickerdyke was a nurse who ran  roughshod over anyone who stood in the way of her self-appointed duties.  She was known affectionately to her "boys", the grateful enlisted men,  as "Mother" Bickerdyke. When a surgeon questioned her authority to take  some action, she replied, "On the authority of Lord God Almighty, have  you anything that outranks that?"[2]  Mother Bickerdyke became the best known, most colorful, and probably  most resourceful Civil War nurse. Widowed two years before the war  began, she supported herself and her two half-grown sons by practicing  as a "botanic Physician" in Galesburg, Illinois. When a young Union  volunteer physician wrote home about the filthy, chaotic military  hospitals at Cairo, Illinois, Galesburg's citizens collected $500 worth  of supplies and selected Bickerdyke to deliver them (no one else would go).  She stayed in Cairo as an unofficial nurse, and through her unbridled  energy and dedication she organized the hospitals and gained Grant's  appreciation. Grant sanctioned her efforts, and when his army moved down  the Mississippi, Bickerdyke went too, setting up hospitals where they  were needed. Sherman was especially fond of this volunteer nurse who  followed the western armies, and supposedly she was the only woman he  would allow in his camp. By the end of the war, with the help of the  U.S. Sanitary Commission, Mother Bickerdyke had built 300 hospitals and  aided the wounded on 19 battlefields including the Battle of Shiloh and  Sherman's March to the Sea.  "Mother" Bickerdyke was so loved by the army that the soldiers would  cheer her as they would a general when she appeared. At Sherman's  request, she rode at the head of the XV Corps in the Grand Review in  Washington at the end of the war.  After the war ended, she worked for the Salvation Army in San Francisco,  and became an attorney, helping Union veterans with legal issues. She  ran a hotel in Salina, Kansas for a time. She received a special pension  of $25 a month from Congress in 1886, and retired to Bunker Hill,  Kansas. She died peacefully after a minor stroke.  A statue of her was erected in Galesburg, and a hospital boat and a  liberty ship, the Mary Bickerdyke,[3] were named after her.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Bickerdyke Report to moderator Logged All comments posted by speedy are merely opinions. These opinions should  not be construed in any manner which suggest that they are threatening.  All posts are in jest and protected by Freedom of Speech. As such, not  subject to subpoena, criminal charges, civil charges and the like.