by Kate Cumming

Full Title: A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee : from the Battle of Shiloh to the end of the war : With Sketches of Life and Character, and Brief Notices of Current Events during that period.

"Kate Cumming was born in Scotland, but in infancy her family came to Mobile, Alabama, where she grew up. At theoutbreak of the Civil War a Mobile clergyman appealed for volunteers for Confederate hospitals,and Miss Cumming offered her services. She began work in Corinth, Mississippi, following the battle of Shiloh, and was almost constantly in hospital service to the end of the war. During this time,she nursedthe wounded in hospitals in Corinth, Okolona, Chattanooga, Dalton, Ringgold, Newnan, Griffin,and Americus. She describes with unusual realism hospital life and scenes,the horrors of amputations with consequent tubs of blood and heaps of arms and legs, pathetic cases of gangrene, the difficulties of securing proper food for patients,and frequent moving of hospitals to keep out of reach of the enemy. Although most of the journal refers to hospital experiences, she also describes her journeys back and forth between Mobile and the various hospitals. She found some prejudice among both doctors and many women of the Confederacy against women entering the hospital service. She felt that women generally were not doing their part to win the war, but mentions many instances in which women performed valiant services in both hospitals and other activities. As a realistic description of the Confederate hospital service, this journal is of first-rate importance." --Coulter 104.