Civil War Nurse Grouping - Mary Keen Woodworth

Item MED-7697

Description

Civil War Nurse Grouping related to Mary Keen Woodworth. Grouping consists of the following items:
1. 1/6 plate daguerreotype in leatherette case. Behind her image is a huge lock of her hair.

2. The Lady's Almanac for 1864 (Outstanding condition) Contains references to Civil War nurses.

3. Document (June 21, 1865) Granting Miss Keen and party of 4 a pass into Petersburg, VA. Document is signed by Colonel William L. James (Brevet Brigadier General)

4. Document (May 13, 1865) Appointing Keen to duty with the Treasury Department. Document signed by Assistant Secretary George R. Harrington (He planned the Lincoln Funeral)

5. Document (May 16, 1865) Informing Keen about a position in the Treasury Department for her and to come "you can come as soon as the comfort of our boys and your own convenience will permit." Document signed by A. S. Pratt

6. Document (November 11, 1870) Refers to Keen's resignation from the Office of the Secretary of the Treasury

7. Membership card for Mary Woodworth in the National Association Army Nurses of the Civil War for GAR Encampment at Saratoga Springs, NY, 1907.

Nurse Mary Ann Keen was living in Pittsburgh with her parents, Lewis and Susannah, when the war began. She served under the strict direction of Dorothea Dix from July 1861 to July 1865.

On July 23, 1861, Mary Ann reported for duty at Seminary Hospital in Georgetown in the District of Columbia. She served under the strict direction of Dorothea Dix. She remained on duty there for the next two-and-a-half years, tending to patients wounded during the fighting of many of the major battles fought in the East. Mary Ann continued on at Seminary Hospital until November 1864, when she transferred to Chesapeake General Hospital in Old Point Comfort, Virginia, part of the sprawling complex of care facilities in the vicinity of Fortress Monroe. She remained there until July 1865, when she was discharged after almost four years of service.

Mary Ann made Washington her home after the war and clerked for a time in the Treasury Department. In 1870 she married fellow clerk Milton Woodworth. A few years later, they became parents to George, their only child. Mary Ann maintained a low profile in the nation’s capital. Records indicate she did not participate with her sister nurses in reunions or related activities. This may be explained by nervous exhaustion, with which she claimed to have suffered after the war. Despite the condition, she lived until age 86, dying in 1922. Her husband and son survived her.
[Information from Wikipedia and Military Images, Spring 2015 issue]