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Dorethea Lynde Dix
Wartime leader of the Union's Women Nurses, Dorothea Dix set a quiet example of indomitable efficiency; Her standards were so high that many volunteers were turned away from battlefield postings. A schoolteacher by training, she later became an ardent crusader for reforms in treatment of the mentally ill in prisons, asylums, and elsewhere -
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Her popular novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, published a decade before the Civil War, helped change the way many Americans felt about slavery, and is forever linked to the abolitionist "fever." -
Mary Ann Bickerdyke
Became known simply as "Mother Bickerdyke" to thousands of Union soldiers, famous for her ability to bypass bureaucracy, scrounge together supplies, and help run army field hospitals -
Clara Barton
Recognizing the soldiers’ dire need for medical supplies, Barton began orchestrating donations and distributing necessary medicines and materials. Years later, the diminutive nurse went on to found the American Red Cross, affiliated with the International Red Cross. -
Mary Boykin Chesnut
Acclaimed diarist and wife of one of South Carolina's leading politicians, Mary Chestnut used her intellect and social status to chronicle the events and personalities of the war.
