In Hospital and Camp in the American Civil War

UPDATE 2021: re-edited and additional annotations.

Long before the end of the American Civil War, Sophronia Bucklin had seen it all: sickness, shattered bodies, amputations, death, and torrents of blood. In this 1869 memoir, Nurse Bucklin spares the reader no detail while humanizing what would otherwise be just statistics of casualties.

She and her sister nurses cared for Union and Confederate, black and white, dressed their wounds and held their hands as they died. But she also has stories of hope and happy endings. Like her comrades, they didn't always play by the rules but did what they thought best for the soldiers.

She volunteered for service at Gettysburg. She heard the cannons up close and had shrapnel and minnie balls rip through the canvas of her hospital tent. Discover inspiring stories of resilience, compassion, and sisterhood as Bucklin and her fellow nurses brave Gettysburg’s front lines, tending to shattered bodies while cannon fire and flying bullets tore through their canvas tents. With vivid detail and deep humanity, Bucklin reveals what it meant to serve as a Civil War nurse—breaking the rules when it mattered most, celebrating small miracles amid tragedy, and giving readers an intimate look at both the horrors and hopes of wartime medicine.

Perfect for fans of Civil War diaries, medical history, strong female pioneers, nurse memoirs, and American history, this long-lost classic offers unforgettable scenes of courage, sacrifice, and compassion in one of the nation’s darkest chapters.