Experiences of the Illinois Civil War Soldier

“Angel of the Battlefield”: Sister Anthony O’Connell-On the battlefields and in the hospitals, soldiers on both sides of the Civil War owed their consolation, or their very lives, to the Catholic Nun. They were there on the war’s bloodiest battlefields. At Shiloh, where some 25,000 fell.

As posted by  patmcnamara 

Sister Anthony was a native of Limerick, Ireland..“To the soldiers of both armies,”  “her name had a magic ring of wonderful power. To them she was the incarnation of angelic goodness that seemed like a visitation from realms celestial. On the battlefield of Shiloh, amid a veritable ocean of blood, she performed the most revolting duties to these poor soldiers. Neither the cries of anguish of the dying nor the unbearable stench from dead bodies could check her in her ministrations. To the young soldier that lay, fatally wounded, upon that bloody ground and was thinking of a lone mother at home, Sister Anthony brought the comfort and peace of a mother’s care. In such moments, it was the instinct of the woman in her that enabled her to soothe the aching heart while relieving the pangs of physical suffering. Otto Juettner, Daniel Drake (Cincinnati, 1909)

Frances Hook a Female Soldier who Fought in Major Battles at Fort Henry, Fort Donelson and Shiloh aka “Frank Miller” &  ”Frank Henderson”

Frances and her brother decided to enlist for the Union Army when the Civil War started. She lied about her age, and cut her hair. They joined the 11th Illinois Infantry Regiment. Frances’ brother was killed in the battle of Shiloh. 

Soldier Frances Hook who as Private Frank Miller, 90th Illinois (not confirmed on rolls) was wounded in the thigh and captured near Florence, Alabama in early 1864 and incarcerated at Atlanta. A Confederate doctor tending to Union wounded exposed Frank Miller as a female and she was soon exchanged at Graysville, Georgia on February 17, 1864 and subsequently convalesced in Nashville where this likeness was taken.

She was taken prisoner by Confederate troops while walking along a trail while her regiment was awaiting deployment. She attempted to make a daring escape, but was shot, and again imprisoned. The Confederates were impressed with her courage, and offered her commission to join their side. She told them that she would rather be hanged then to fight along side the Confederate troops.

Later she was discharged and sent home to Illinois but speculation remains that with nowhere else to go she reenlisted and continued to serve until the end of the war.

Frances Hook ultimately married in 1908, and her daughter later applied for a military pension based on her mother’s Civil War military service. Contemporary authors of social history and those focusing in women’s studies have put the number of female soldiers serving in Northern and Southern armies as high as several thousand, but the true identities of only a handful are actually known. Frances Hook alias Frank Miller is a legitimate example of a female warrior.

John Wales January- Cut off his own feet to live- He enlisted in Company B of the 14th Illinois Cavalry and was captured in July, 1864

I was captured by six rebel soldiers, sent to Andersonville, and there kept until the fall of Atlanta made it necessary for us to be removed to prevent falling in the hands of the Union forces.

Five Unidentified Prisoners of War in Confederate Uniforms in Front of Their Barracks at Camp Douglas Prison, Chicago, Illinois

Camp Douglas, located on the south side of Chicago, became a place of brutal misery to many Confederate prisoners during the Civil War. Rumors of crowded and unhealthy conditions, along with death and disease, were widely circulated in the southern press during the war. The camp soon earned what many people would consider a fitting nickname… “Eighty Acres of Hell”.

Digital ID: (digital file from original item) ppmsca 32610 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.32610

Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-ppmsca-32610 (digital file from original item)

Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print