Scottish-born, Alabama-bred Kate Cumming was one of the first women to offer her services for the care of the South’s wounded soldiers. Her detailed journal, first published in 1866, provides a riveting look behind the lines of Civil War action in depicting civilian attitudes, army medical practices, and the administrative workings of the Confederate hospital system.
Richard Barksdale Harwell wrote or edited over twenty books on the Civil War, including The Confederate Reader and The Union Reader.
Praise for Kate: The Journal of A Confederate Nurse
“This is one of the best personal records to come out of the War Between the States and certainly a worthy historical medical record of that bloody struggle. Kate Cumming must have an undisputed place with such other magnificent women of her day as Florence Nightingale, Kate Stone, Phoebe Pember, and Clara Barton.”—Journal of the History of Medicine
“Written by a courageous and defiant lady, this journal is in many respects the most revealing personal narrative of life in the general hospitals of the beleaguered Confederacy.”—H. H. Cunningham, North Carolina Historical Review
“Cumming portrays the fortunes of the Confederacy with remarkable acuity. That her journal is an invaluable historical source is self-evident, but even more than this, it is a fascinating book.”—Louisiana History
