7. William Tecumseh Sherman Was Intimidated by a Pioneering Nurse
Mary Ann Bickerdyke (1817 – 1901) was a Union Army nurse and hospital administrator during the Civil War. She helped establish hundreds of field hospitals for the wounded and sick, and after the war, she spent decades helping veterans and their families secure their pensions. Her deep concern for and tireless efforts on the soldiers’ behalf earned her the nickname “Mother Bickerdyke” from the men. It also won the admiration of many of their commanders, including US Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman. An Ohioan, Bickerdyke was one of the first women to attend Oberlin College. She eventually settled in Illinois, where she worked as a botanic physician and a provider of alternative medicines, using herbs and plants.
When the war began, a regimental surgeon and friend of Bickerdyke wrote about the abysmal conditions in military hospitals in Cairo, Illinois. Bickerdyke’s community collected $500 worth of supplies, and she was the only volunteer willing to deliver them. She ended up getting appointed as a field agent for the US Sanitary Commission – a private relief agency created to support sick and wounded soldiers. A strong-willed woman, Bickerdyke was determined to let nothing stand in the way of her quest to bring order to field hospitals and improve the lot of the soldiers receiving treatment in them. When an Army surgeon questioned her authority, she retorted that she was acting: “On the authority of the Lord God Almighty. Have you anything that outranks that?” On another occasion, when members of General Grant’s staff complained to William Tecumseh Sherman of Bickerdyke’s deliberate defiance of some regulations, he threw up his hands and exclaimed: “She outranks me. I can’t do a thing in the world“.