Civil War Female Nurse

Item LTR-7291

Description

Original Civil War soldier's letter. 2 pages written in period ink.

Fredericksburg
May 13, 1864

Mrs. Conner

Dear Madam:

Your dear son, Cole C., was last evening moved from the Hospital to a private house where he can have more quiet than he has heretofore had. Dr. Hays is devoted to him and has had a chair made for him on which he was transported. Mrs. Mayhew and myself visit him several times each day. He expects his father in Washington, who will without a doubt come immediately down here as we all think it best he should not be moved. I shall write his father and direct to the Maine Agency, Washington, giving him directions in regards to coming &c. Do not be at all uneasy about him in regard to his being cared for, for I can assure you he shall have every attention and I will write you frequently of him until his father reaches him. I have just written his sister, Mrs. Brooks. We have so many so seriously wounded to work and write for, that we can give but a word to each.

Hastily and truly yours,
Mrs. Chas. A. L. Sampson

If the ladies of Kendall’s Mills will make up a box of supplies and send to the Maine Agency at Washington, we will send up for it. We need everything; particularly now things to make them comfortably clean: shirts, rags, bandages, towels and hankies and combs. Mrs. Geo. W. Hall who has acquaintances in Kendall’s Mills is coming down and will bring them – direct to her thus:
Mrs. George W. Hall
Maine Agency
1273 F. Street
Washington, D.C.





Sarah S. Sampson
Civil War Nurse

This redoubtable lady came to Washington, D.C. to be near her husband, Lieutenant Colonel Charles A.W. Sampson of the 3rd Maine. She occupied her time first by visiting wounded Maine boys in Washington hospitals, but soon was venturing far afield, bringing supplies, food and medicines to troops on the James River. She was often in some danger. On one occasion, she was on board the Steamer Molly Baker and while writing to the Adjutant General, interrupted herself to tell him: "We are going down under guard of the gun-boat Galena as the Steamer which came up this morning was fired into by rebel batteries. There is considerable excitement on board." She went on with her letter, but included, with her customary aplomb, this postscript: "Later - I am told by the Capt. we have been fired at by quite a number of guns but as yet none has struck us."
In July 1862, Lieutenant Colonel Sampson had resigned due to ill health and Sarah accompanied him home to Bath, Maine, but not for long. By September she was back in Washington, this time as a salaried worker for the Maine Soldier's Relief Agency, which was headquartered on F. Street.
She spent the rest of the war bringing supplies, medicine, food and other necessities gathered by the Agency to Maine troops in field hospitals. Her long account of dealing with the wounded from The Wilderness who were brought in to the hostile city of Fredericksburg is harrowing.
After the war she returned to Maine where she founded and served as first Matron of the Bath Military and Naval Children's Home - an orphanage for the children of Civil War veterans.
She eventually gravitated back to Washington where she worked in the U.S. Pension Office.
Wrote Gettysburg Reports.