Wisconsin women rallied to support the Union during the Civil War as nurses, hospital matrons, sanitary agents, and ministers. Cordelia A. Perrine Harvey attained national prominence for promoting convalescent aid for sick and wounded soldiers. After moving with her family to Southport (Kenosha) in 1840, she married Louis P. Harvey, who became governor in 1862. In April of that year, Governor Harvey drowned while visiting Wisconsin troops wounded at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee, and Mrs. Harvey then dedicated herself to improving conditions for hospitalized soldiers. She criticized military hospitals for improper sanitation and urged that disabled soldiers be sent northward to medical centers near their homes where care would be better. In 1863, she met Abraham Lincoln and convinced the President to approve recuperation hospitals in the North. The first of three such hospitals in Wisconsin opened in Madison, with the others in Milwaukee and Prairie du Chien. The Harvey United States Army Hospital in Madison was redesignated the Wisconsin Soldiers’ Orphans Home in 1866, operated under Mrs. Harvey’s direction until 1867, and closed in 1874.