Angel of Mercy

On February 11, 1864, twenty-four-year-old New Jersey Quaker Cornelia Hancock arrived at Brandy Station and entered the vast 1863-1864 winter camp of the Army of the Potomac. Though young, she was already an experienced nurse. In 1863, superintendent of nurses Dorothea Dix had rejected her because of her "youth and rosy cheeks," but Cornelia went to Gettysburg anyway and assisted wounded Union men of the Second Corps, earning a strong reputation. At Brandy Station, she carried a pass from Secretary of War Edwin Staunton that allowed her to move freely about the 100,000-man encampment. She served in the field hospital for the Third Division of the Second Corps and spent three months tending soldiers sick with disease as well as men wounded in nearby skirmishes. As the spring campaign season approached, she and other non-combatants were sent home, but she later returned to the front and continued nursing men of the Second Corps.

Brandy Station, Virginia · United States