Where a woman served
In the foreground of the upper photograph appears a Confederate naval battery at
Yorktown, Va., and in the background the
Nelson Church Hospital.
The photograph was taken July 1, 1862, after
McClellan's army had swept past nearly to
Richmond, leaving wounded and fever-stricken in its train.
After the siege of
Yorktown, the house which had been used as headquarters by
General Cornwallis during the
War of the Revolution was used as a hospital.
It was placed in charge of
Mrs. John A. Dix, the wife of
General Dix, then stationed at
Fortress Monroe.
Mrs. Dix was an enthusiastic Union woman who left her palatial home in New York to give her services to the suffering and wounded soldiers.
The bricks of which this building was built were brought over from
England.
The hospital established here under the care of
Mrs. Dix is said by old soldiers to have been one of the most convenient and pleasant of those established for the
Union army in the early years of the war. Fortunately for the inmates it was never overcrowded.
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Instruments of war and mercy—the gun and the church-hospital in 1862 |
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Cornwallis' headquarters a hospital in 1862 |
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