Hancock, Wakeman, and Pierce: The Women of the Civil War: A Review of Letters of a Civil War nurse, An Uncommon Soldier and Tillie Pierce at Gettysburg
Sarah Rosetta Wakeman was a native
New Yorker who left home in order to make money for her family who didn’t have
much. She disguised herself as a man and took a job as a coal handler on a boat
but after her first trip on the boat she noted the appearance of recruiters for
153rd New York State Volunteers and decided to use her disguise in
order to make a little more money for her family and joined as Lyons Wakeman. The
letters of Wakeman’s time in military service during the Civil War were
published by Lauren Cook Burgess and she titled the book An Uncommon Soldier which was a fitting title for the book
considering that women soldiers during the Civil War weren’t acknowledged and
many were imprisoned if they were found out. Burgess acquired the letters from
Wakeman’s great-great-niece Ruth Goodier and with the help of the family and
many historians Burgess had the ability to bring together Wakeman’s time as a
soldier. Even though Wakeman was a soldier she tried her best not to stand out
in the crowd because if she stood out too much she would be found out as a
woman. Wakeman didn’t see any truly significant battles in the war many of her
entries were about the conditions in the camps and the many diseases that would
plague the soldiers. Yet she did serve as a guard at Washington’s Carroll
Prison where she would guard the prisoners every other day. Notably three of
the prisoners were women one a Major in the Union army the other two were spies
for the rebel army. Very few people had knowledge that Wakeman was a soldier in
the army and they all kept that secret knowing that if she were to be exposed.
During her final days Wakeman would be a part of a defensive strategy in the
south to keep the Confederates from going westward the trek was fierce and long
fought but Wakeman would die of disease before the end and would be buried in
Louisiana as Lyons Wakeman.
Cornelia Hancock was a native of a
small town in New Jersey who decided to serve her country as a Nurse for the
Union army during the Civil War. Though she was recommended to join the effort
as she wanted to help out her country she wasn’t supposed to go to Gettysburg
because according to Dorothea Dix who Hancock says “immediately objected to my
going farther on the score of my youth and rosy cheeks.”[1]
Even though Dix said this Hancock snuck aboard a train headed towards the
battle grounds at Gettysburg and arrived there to face the wounded, dying and
already dead soldiers of the battle. Hancock’s letters describe the gruesome
scene as well as the smell of the area plagued by the bodies of the dead. She
helped out several doctors during her time and the soldiers regarded her as an
angel they even awarded her a metal in which they had made for her. After the
hospital was closed and the soldiers moved to other hospitals, discharged or
sent back out to help in the war, Hancock was assigned to several other areas
much of the time following the Union army as support with other doctors in case
they needed emergency care. Hancock’s letters were always addressed to her
family as a way of reassuring them that she was safe and well taken care of so
that they didn’t worry about her being stuck or hurt. Constantly telling them
of things she acquired and the homes that were built for her through each town
they settled in, as well as her interactions with the other doctors and their
lives together during battles. Hancock helped also aided the freed slaves as
they crossed up to the north during one of her stays, teaching them and aiding
many as best as she could but also witnessed the hardships that they faced
trying to start new lives as many of them were dying from hunger and disease.
Many of these slaves also abandoned their children in hopes that they would
attain better lives if they weren’t with their parents but these children went
from their parents to orphanages. Hancock’s determination to help out and teach
others is something that admirable and she has the highest regard from many of
her peers.
Tillie Pierce was a different type
of person during the war she was just a normal student in school when all of a
sudden she was thrust into a war that had finally come to the North. Pierce was
a native of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania attending school when all of a sudden a
warning of the incoming rebels changed everything. Sent home from school in
hopes that the students would be safe if they got home before the war came into
town many made it home but the rebels came in looking for supplies and they took
it from where they could get it. Pierce was sent to a safe house in a town near
Round top where she would witness the true horrors of war first hand and
document it later on. Her accounts were reenacted in the documentary Tillie Pierce of Gettysburg in which
Pierce’s accounts of the battle would be brought to life. He accounts include
some parts of the battle as well as the aftermath where many soldiers were
lying on the ground and some were having limbed amputated by the doctors who
were brought in to help with medical care.
These three incredible young women
lived through one of the most gruesome and hard fought wars in history and all
have accounts from different perspectives of the war. Pierce and Hancock’s
accounts of the battle of Gettysburg account many of the similarities that they
both encountered such as the horrors of the mass of bodies both dead and dying.
They both helped out the doctors who were treating the wounded as they tried to
make themselves helpful and not nuisances, unlike Wakeman who was a
full-fledged soldier in the war. Yet the three young women’s accounts are
similar in their accounts of the magnitude of death that plagued the war.
Wakeman wrote in one of her letters, “I have found some names in the Burying
Ground here that is of some importance. They are Soldiers that are buried
here.”[2]
she’s was writing home about the possibility of those from her town who
may have died and was hoping to confirm their deaths. The differences in
Wakeman’s and Hancock’s letters are not only that of a soldier and a nurse but
in their writing styles where Hancock would reply to everyone reassuring them,
Wakeman didn’t want to go back home for her she had to keep going knowing that
there was a possibility that she would not return home from the war. The true
differences of these accounts are their different perspectives as well as their
lives before they were pushed into the war and its aftermath as well as their
accounts of the different events that they would become a part of.
If there is one area of these
magnificent young women’s lives that a person can take away from it would be
their undeniable tenacity to be able to help their families, their country, and
even themselves. They are all different in their own ways but no one person is
the same and their ability to change according to their situation is admirable.
Their accounts are something that should be taught in schools as well as those
of other women who played a part in the Civil War to have a better
understanding of why some women would do what they can to change the course of
war and help those who they consider allies. In the 21st century
women don’t have to disguise themselves to join the war or become nurses to be
able to help but even with over one hundred between the Civil War and the new
millennia women still have more battles to fight to be equal to the men who
fight in the armed forces. If they learned from these young women who fought in
the Civil War then they would learn that to fight one war they must battle many
other obstacles and continue no matter what.
[1]
Cornelia Hancock, Letters of a Civil War Nurse: Cornelia Hancock, 1863-1865
(First Bison Books, 1998), 3
[2]
Lauren Cook Burgess, An Uncommon Soldier: The Civil War Letters of Sarah
Rosetta Wakeman, alias Pvt. Lyons Wakeman, 153rd Regiment, New York
State Volunteers, 1862-1864 (Oxford University Press, 1994), 28-19
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