Today, I am thankful for those who nurse us back to health.
A poignant fact that has bothered me for most of my life is the knowledge that more Americans were injured or died in the American Civil War than in any other American conflict in the last 250 years…combined! Sadly, as we learned recently from the recent tales of Florence Nightingale and Henri Denant, the care of those inflicted by wounds on the battlefield was not something society in the mid 19th Century had formally standardized. However, thanks to the efforts of these two stalwarts, the practice of nursing soldiers on and off the battlefield eventually became commonplace. During the American Civil War, nursing became a standard of care for the wounded fighters on the battlefield. On this day, I’d like to share two relevant stories that illustrate this point.
One of the many reputable nurses who supported the Union under its fearless leader, Dorothea Dix, was a Massachusetts woman named Clara Barton. Heralded as the ‘American Nightingale,’ Barton played a role analogous to the one Florence Nightingale held during the Crimean War. The American nurses would often care for the soldiers on both the Union and Confederate sides. After the war, Barton ran an office in Washington, DC, designed to identify soldiers who died or were still missing in action. In due time, she also founded the American Red Cross, as a vehicle to respond to crises, such as war or natural disasters. On this day (May 31) in 1889, a massive dam collapsed in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, killing nearly 2,200 citizens of the town and leaving close to another 1,600 homeless and destitute. Within 5 days, Clara Barton rallied 50 doctors, nurses, and other relief personnel to provide donations, food, clean water, and supplies to the denizens of Johnstown. Barton stayed in the town for nearly 5 months, helping to build Red Cross Hotels and nearly 3,000 prefabricated homes, in an effort to revive the battered town.
Then, there’s Walt Whitman, the great American humanist journalist, essayist, and poet who was born on this day (May 31) in 1819. Years after self-publishing his highly regarded first book of poetry, Leaves of Grass, Whitman did something that far surpassed all his writings. He became one of the most prominent nurses during the Civil War movement. After hearing his brother had been injured in fighting near Fredericksburg, Virginia, Whitman travelled south to find his brother faring well with just a minor superficial facial wound. However, what he also found shocked him into action. The wounded soldiers in the makeshift battlefield hospital were suffering immensely, often with insufficient nursing support. So, he rolled up his sleeves and became a volunteer nurse. He travelled with the victims of the casualties in a train to the nation’s capital. He gathered verbal messages from hundreds of the soldiers, which he then proceeded to write down and send to all their families. Upon arriving at the Washington hospital, he dedicated his next 3 years nursing the ill, sharing stories and poems from his books, and even chronicling the war effort in his classic free-prose style. His poem, The Wound Dresser, does not receive the noted repute of his preeminent poem of the Lincoln assignation (O Captain! My Captain!), but it shares an important lesson of his compassion:
I onward go, I stop
With hinged knees and steady hands to dress wounds,
I am firm with each, the pangs are sharp yet unavoidable,
One turns to me his appealing eyes – poor boy! I never knew you,
Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you.
Walt Whitman taught us that the work nurses do is beyond reproach, and, despite what the common stereotypes might suggest, a wonderful, gender-neutral field. Clara Barton taught us that the work nurses do often does not stop on the battlefields and in hospitals. Sometimes we need to nurse entire villages, towns, and countries back to health.
I remain internally grateful and awestruck by all the work that nurses do to help us heal. Take a moment to thank a nurse today.
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