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Rebecca Usher, Civil War Nurse

Rebecca Usher diary, 1865

Rebecca Usher diary, 1865

Item 1451 info
Maine Historical Society

Usher's family kept the letters she wrote home and she saved much of her war memorabilia and letters she received from soldiers and from her fellow nurses.

She responded to a request from Frank Moore who wrote a book about women in the war, recounting many of her experiences and the types of work the women did.

Whether single, widowed, or married, women who served as nurses had experiences unique to women of their era and sought to preserve -- and remember -- something of that time in their lives and the life of the country.