Introduction

160 years ago, as men in the North and South reported for duty in the American Civil War, groups of women across the nation also volunteered or were requested to serve as nurses in military hospitals, in the field, or on hospital ships. While an undetermined percentage of the female nurses were single, married, or widowed, approximately 600 Civil War nurses were members of women religious communities who had consecrated their lives to God. Having taken vows to help the poor, sick, or uneducated, the Catholic Sisters were accustomed to responding to the needs of the laypeople outside of their convents and were willing to go wherever they were needed during the 1860s.

Because they had been invited by God and accepted His vocational call, the women religious, also referred to as religious sisters, were specifically concerned with the people who suffered among them and were dedicated to aiding anyone, even those who did not ask for assistance. Although sometimes assumed to be nuns, the Catholic women who worked as wartime nurses were not cloistered and did not live in silence like their contemplative counterparts.^[1] While prayer was a major aspect of every religious sister’s days, she also had an active ministry, and as such, was committed to service. Depending on her talents and training, she would typically teach in a school, provide health care to patients, tend to orphans, or minister to the dying, but sometimes, she might be expected to take on a combination of these merciful works.

To commemorate the 160th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, this exhibit recognizes the essential role that the Catholic Sister-Nurses played, as, historically, there has been an emphasis on non-religious nurses. Utilizing images, correspondence, and textual records from four archival institutions, the exhibit was designed to raise awareness about the contributions of women religious throughout the Civil War and in distinct geographical locations of the United States. Another goal of the exhibit is to correctly identify the religious sisters based upon their congregation or community and to continue to honor their memory.

As displayed in Figure 1, the Nuns of the Battlefield monument was a post-war memorial erected in Washington, D.C. as a tribute to the estimated 600 Catholic Sisters who nursed Union and Confederate soldiers between 1861 and 1865. While a total of twelve women religious orders are represented on the bas relief panel, this exhibit will highlight the work of four congregations: the Sisters of the Holy Cross, the Sisters of Mercy, the Sisters of Charity, and the Daughters of Charity. Furthermore, the photograph of this 1924 sculpture has been annotated so that viewers can see the four types of religious sisters that will be featured as “Angels of Mercy.”