Women Nurses in the Spanish-American War

Minerva: Quarterly Report on Women and the Military, Spring, 2001 by Mercedes H. Graf

Reminiscences from the Army Camps

The Army nurses' achievements were impressive, especially since their numbers were inadequate for the huge numbers of ill men they were expected to help. While there were few battle casualties, thousands of men were struck down by epidemics and diseases exacerbated by poor conditions in the temporary camps in the South. The women often lived in settings that were no better; they were exposed to stressful environmental conditions that drained their physical and emotional energy.

Narratives written by SAW nurses detail the primitive living quarters, sanitary arrangements, and hardships that they endured in the early days of the war. In Camp Wikoff at Montauk Point, New York, Kate M. Walsh wrote succinctly about her introduction to Army nursing.

   On arriving at the hospital, we were taken to our sleeping tents, which
   were of canvas. The weather was 90 degrees in the shade. We had little iron
   beds, close together. The bed acted as chair, wardrobe etc. We changed our
   clothes and went on duty. Our white clothing was not suitable, as there was
   no laundry. We should have had canvas frocks. In two days I was filthy
   looking and distressed. The beds were about a foot apart, wire sticking out
   all along the sides. Our clothes were torn in ribbons from our bodies, when
   passing between them, which increased the anguish of our bodies and minds.

   Nurses kept getting sick and some had to be sent away, some dying. One
   convenience hut, without a door for some time. Nurses fainted in this place
   and had to be carried away ...

   We were either in dust or mud going to our quarters or to the mess ...
   There was one shallow tin basin for several nurses ... Bathing my feet
   every night and morning with alcohol kept me from being carried out on a
   stretcher. Each night, I would feel that I could not stand another day;
   still this constant bathing kept me fit for another. We were sadly in need
   of tub baths and fresh clothing. The heat was intense and I perspired
   freely from long hours of over work, heat and flies, together with my
   anguish that our dear sick men were not half cared for.(42)

Conditions were just as extreme at Camp Thomas in Chickamauga Park, Georgia. Because of a devastating epidemic of typhoid lever, McGee had been commissioned to organize a contingent of nurses. She personally selected two hundred graduate nurses who were immediately sent to Sternberg Field Hospital. Among these women were nurses Helen B. Schuler and Florence M. Kelly. They related that the newly established hospital consisted of 13 rough board huts, unfinished and unheated. Holes cut for windows but not glazed let in hordes of flies and mosquitoes that were constantly streaming through. When a Georgia rainstorm came, the women could only close the openings with wooden doors, eliminating any ventilation. Their choice was cold, damp, flooded huts or foul, humid air in an overcrowded ward.

The nurses were frequently called upon to work 18 hour days, and they were often required to supply many of the necessary medical supplies for the sick from their own private equipment until the government issue arrived. Soap and cleaning materials were rare, and the rough board floors were usually mopped up with a face towel or a pillowcase. "Cold water was as valuable as money, and as for hot water, there just was no such thing."