, c. 1867 Mary Bickerdyke served in the Civil War from June 9, 1861, to March 20, 1865, working in a total of nineteen battles. Bickerdyke was described as a determined nurse who did not let anyone stand in the way of her duties. Her patients, the enlisted soldiers, referred to her as "Mother" Bickerdyke because of her caring nature. When a surgeon questioned her authority to take some action, she replied, "On the authority of Lord God Almighty; have you anything that outranks that?" In fact, her authority came from her reputation with the Sanitary Commission and her popularity with the enlisted men. Dr. Woodward, a surgeon with the
22nd Illinois Infantry and a friend of Bickerdyke's, wrote home about the filthy, chaotic military hospitals at
Cairo, Illinois. The letter was read aloud in their church and Galesburg's citizens collected $500 worth of supplies and selected Bickerdyke to deliver them (no one else would go). After meeting
Mary Livermore, she was appointed a field agent for the Northwestern branch of the
Sanitary Commission. Livermore also helped Bickerdyke find care for her two sons in Beloit, Wisconsin, while she was in the field with the army during the later part of the war. Her sons complained about living in Beloit. She stayed in Cairo as a nurse, and while there, she organized the hospitals and gained Grant's appreciation. Grant endorsed her efforts and detailed soldiers to her hospital train, and when his army moved down the Mississippi, Bickerdyke went, too, setting up hospitals where they were needed. Bickerdyke became a matron of the hospital in only five months. She later joined a field hospital at
Fort Donelson, working alongside
Mary J. Safford. Bickerdyke cites Fort Donelson, specifically February 15 and 16, as the first battle she witnessed. At
Fort Donelson, she realized that laundry services were lacking in the field hospitals. She packed up the soiled clothes and bedding that had been used by the men, added disinfectants, and sent it on a steamer bound for Pittsburg Landing to be cleaned by the Chicago Sanitary Commission. She also requested that her colleagues in Chicago send washing machines, portable kettles, and
mangles. She then organized former enslaved workers (some of whom had escaped from enslavement) to provide laundry services for the hospitals she set up in the field. After serving at Fort Donelson, she was appointed matron at Gayoso Block Hospital in Memphis. Gayoso had 900 patients, including 400
Native Americans. As at her other hospitals, "Mother" Bickerdyke employed former enslaved workers at Gayoso. She had left Gayoso to run errands and returned to find the medical director had sent those workers away. She left for dinner but did not return right away. Rather, she visited
General Hurlbut's headquarters. She was given written authority to keep her staff until such time as Hurlbut himself revoked the order. She also set about acquiring cows and hens to provide dairy products for the hospital. General Hurlbut set aside President's Island for their pasture and hospital workers cared for the animals. Bickerdyke also worked closely with
Eliza Emily Chappell Porter of Chicago's Northwestern branch of the
United States Sanitary Commission. She later worked on the first hospital boat. During the war, she became chief of nursing under the command of General
Ulysses S. Grant, and served at the
Battle of Vicksburg. As chief of nursing, Bickerdyke sometimes deliberately ignored military procedure, and when Grant's staff complained about her behavior, Union Gen.
William T. Sherman reportedly threw up his hands and exclaimed, "She outranks me. I can't do a thing in the world." Sherman acknowledged that she was "one of his best generals" and other officers referred to her as the "Brigadier Commanding Hospitals." Sherman was especially fond of this volunteer nurse, who followed the western armies. Bickerdyke held the favor of both General Sherman and General Grant, who often provided her whatever she requested of them. On October 27, 1863, Bickerdyke reported to
Chattanooga and was witness to the battle of Lookout Mountain, nicknamed "the battle above the clouds." "I watched the dreadful combat until the clouds hid all from view," she wrote in a letter to
Mary Holland, "In fancy I can hear
General Hooker's artillery now." Bickerdyke set up the field hospital of the
Fifteenth Army Corps for the
Battle of Missionary Ridge, where she was the only female attendant for four weeks. Part of her work during this campaign was to collect personal items of soldiers killed in battle and return them to the soldiers' homes. On the march to capture Atlanta, Georgia, despite General Sherman's orders to inflict "all the damage you can against [the enemy's] war resource," Bickerdyke worked to build hospitals for Confederate soldiers. By the end of the war, with the help of the
U.S. Sanitary Commission, Mother Bickerdyke had built 300 hospitals and aided the wounded on 19 battlefields including the
Battle of Shiloh and
Sherman's March to the Sea. "Mother" Bickerdyke was so loved by the army that the soldiers would cheer her when she appeared. At Sherman's request, she rode at the head of the XV Corps in the
Grand Review of the Armies in Washington at the end of the war. ==After the War==