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Women's Roles: What Nurses Did In The South

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Chapter 4: What Nurses Did in the South Before the Civil War, women south served as the nurses to their immediate families only. For those that lived on rather large plantations, they were the nurses for the children, husbands as well as their slaves. The vast majority of southern women were well versed and comfortable caring for those who are sick and injured. More often than not, nursing in the south was considered to be their “sovereign duty” or just “women’s work”. This rule of thumb was not for women that carried stature or hailed from a particular breed. The Southern Belle was considered to be a creature of delicate modesty that would never find themselves volunteering for service as a nurse. Even with high volumes of dying and wounded soldiers due to Fort Sumter being fired upon; the first nurses of the Confederacy were male soldiers that were recuperating themselves. Such soldiers found being appointed to the hospital duty a source of resentment. The South was less than prepared for casualties as well as the wounded at the Civil War commencement. In response to the lack of preparation, southern women began organizing groups and associations such as the Ladies’ Soldiers’ Relief Society as well as the Association for the Relief of Maimed Soldiers. There were also women that began to establish private hospitals within donated …show more content…

Even with a lack of proper training the volunteer nurses of the Confederacy were able to make wondrous contribution to the care and treatment of injured soldiers as well as the sick. These women courageously ventured into unsanitary conditions in order to deliver proper care to their fellow countrymen. With their actions and servitude, these female nurses were able to expressly dispel the myth that had contended that Southern women were simply timid and

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