To Bind Up the Wounds: Catholic Sister Nurses in the U.S. Civil War (Walter Lynwood Fleming Lectures in Southern History)

The contributions of more than six hundred Catholic nuns to the care of Confederate and Union sick and wounded made a critical impact upon nineteenth-century America. Not only did thousands of soldiers directly benefit from the religious sisters' ministrations, but both professional nursing and Catholics' acceptance within mainstream society advanced significantly as a result. In To Bind Up the Wounds, Sister Mary Denis Maher writes this heretofore neglected Civil War chapter in rich detail, telling a riveting story shot with suspicion and prejudice, suffering and self-sacrifice, ingenuity, beneficence, and gratitude.