Emily Elizabeth Parsons facts for kids
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Emily Elizabeth Parsons (1824 – 1880) was a brave nurse during the American Civil War. She also helped run hospitals and later started Mount Auburn Hospital in Massachusetts. After she passed away, her book Fearless Purpose: Memoir of Emily Elizabeth Parsons was published. It shares a special look at the Civil War from a nurse's point of view. She wrote about caring for Union soldiers and leading nurses at Benton Barracks Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri.
Contents
Emily's Early Life
Emily Elizabeth Parsons was born in Taunton, Massachusetts, on March 8, 1824. She was the oldest of seven children. Her father, Theophilus Parsons, was a lawyer and a professor at Harvard University. He supported Abraham Lincoln. Emily grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and finished Cambridge High School.
When she was a child, an accident caused her to lose sight in one eye. Later, a sickness called scarlet fever made her partly deaf. She also had an ankle injury that made it hard for her to stand for a long time.
Becoming a Nurse During the Civil War
Before the Civil War, nursing was mostly done by men. It was not seen as a good job for women. But during the war, many soldiers became sick or were hurt. This led many women to become nurses in the hospitals.
In 1861, when the war started, Emily was 37 years old. She wanted to help the Union army as a nurse. Her father worried about her health because of her disabilities. He thought she might not be very helpful and could get sick herself.
However, Emily began training as a volunteer at the Massachusetts General Hospital. After 18 months, she was put in charge of a ward. This ward had 50 wounded Union soldiers at Fort Schuyler Military Hospital in New York. This happened in October 1862.
For two months, she worked as a nurse at Fort Schuyler. She sent letters home to her family. These letters were later published in her book. In her letters, she wrote about preparing men for amputations (when a limb is removed) or for death. She also described how snow and rain came through the hospital roof. The wind would shake the building outside.
Her father again worried that she was too sick to continue nursing. Emily reminded him that she was committed to her work, just like her brother who was a soldier. She wrote, "Remember that I am in the army just as Chauncy is and I must be held to work just as he is." Even with her strong will, her health got worse. She had to take a break and go back home.
Working on a Hospital Ship
While recovering, Emily wrote to Dorothea Dix. Dix was the superintendent of Union nurses. She had worked hard to allow women to become military nurses. Emily offered her help wherever it was needed.
Emily also became friends with Jessie Benton Frémont, a writer and activist. Fremont suggested Emily to the Western Sanitary Commission in St. Louis. In January 1863, Emily left Massachusetts for St. Louis, Missouri. When she arrived, the city was full of sick and wounded soldiers. Many buildings were quickly turned into hospitals. Emily was first sent to Lawson Hospital.
After only a few weeks, she was moved to the hospital steamship City of Alton. This ship traveled down the Mississippi River during the Vicksburg campaign. At Vicksburg, Mississippi, 400 sick soldiers were brought onto the ship. Most of them had fevers, and many were very ill. They were taken as far as Memphis, Tennessee. Black men and women who had escaped slavery were also brought on board.
From the steamship, Emily again sent letters home. She wrote about the sounds of exploding shells from the Union and Confederate armies. She shared a story about a formerly enslaved person whose creaking boots made another freedman call out, "Ah Jane, your boots cry out for freedom!" Many wounded soldiers died on the trip up the river. During this time, Emily caught malaria. After that, she had fevers many times.
In Memphis, the sick and wounded were moved to hospitals. Then, General Ulysses S. Grant ordered the boat to be loaded with active soldiers and return to Vicksburg. Emily and the other female nurses went back to St. Louis.
Leading Nurses at Benton Barracks Hospital
In St. Louis, Emily Parsons was put in charge of the Benton Barracks Hospital. This was the largest hospital in the American West, with 2,000 patients. Wounded black and white soldiers were kept in separate areas. The main amphitheater was used as a hospital for black troops.
Emily's letters describe both the challenges and hopes that the wounded black soldiers brought. She noted that many people felt black soldiers should be treated as "inferior beings." But Emily believed they were only "inferior from neglect." She worked hard to do her duty by them.
As the supervising nurse, she also talked with women from the Colored Ladies Aid Society. These women had to fight for the right to ride streetcars to visit the wounded black soldiers. They told Emily "things that would make your blood boil." Emily wrote that the hospital was doing more than just caring for the soldiers' bodies. It was "bringing to the surface facts, and establishing precedents with the enemy." She felt it was "storming the citadel."
Emily also trained new nurses, both black and white, who volunteered at the hospital. Under her leadership, the hospital's death rate dropped a lot. Towards the end of the Civil War, the hospital also began to treat formerly enslaved people and refugees of all races. These people were coming into St. Louis from the South.
Even when she was sick with malaria, Emily continued to direct the nurses from her bed. Her health eventually made her return to Cambridge. But she kept sending boxes of gardening seeds and clothing to the formerly enslaved people and refugees at Barracks Hospital. She wanted them to have a good start in their new lives in Missouri.
Starting Cambridge Hospital
After the war, Emily returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts. For the next six years, she worked to raise money for a hospital there. In 1869, she received a special permission (a charter) for what was then called Cambridge Hospital. It was located in a rented house.
The hospital was open only until 1872. It had to close because it ran out of money. However, it was reopened in 1886, after Emily's death. Its name was changed to Mount Auburn Hospital.
Death and Legacy
Emily Parsons died in 1880 from a stroke. She is buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery.
After her death, her father published some of the letters she wrote to her family. This book became her memoir. Emily's writings are important because they are one of the few books that describe the daily lives of the 3,000 women who served as military nurses during the Civil War. Other famous nurses like Clara Barton, Susie Taylor, and Louisa May Alcott also wrote about their experiences.
Today, Mount Auburn Hospital still serves patients in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Images for kids
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19th Century Illustration of Benton Barracks, St. Louis
