Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1159391
Working Nurse l WorkingNurse.com 21 August 12–September 16, 2019 others grim and under-supplied, forcing her and her men to sub- sist on hardtack and coffee. She was often the only woman among hundreds of men, but she later remarked, "Never in my life have I been treated with more respect and consideration, than while a nurse in the Volunteer Army. If a woman respects herself, men will respect her." Palmer expressed great respect for the soldiers in her regi- ment and for many of their officers and surgeons, but she had harsh words for those who failed to respect her work, such as a camp cook who "seemed to take particular pleasure in foiling in attempts to get additions to a sick man's rations." She was also willing to defy the doctors if she felt it necessary. At one point, she arranged to send a badly wounded soldier to Washington, D.C., without authorization. The doctor, furiously angry at this, threatened to immediately discharge Palmer. She refused to back down and the doctor finally conceded that there was nothing to be done, since the patient was already long gone. By the time Aunt Becky recounted this story for a Richmond, Va., newspaper in 1900, the single patient had become 14 and she claimed that the angry doctor had taken his complaints to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who, she alleged, "laughed and said, 'I've got nothing to say. Aunt Becky outranks me!'" Getting Paid When the war ended in 1865, Palmer went to Washington to see Dorothea Dix and "obtain my pay, as it was due": the princely sum of $12 a month. After being sent on wild goose chases to different government offices, Palmer confronted the Army paymaster, who refused to pay her until Palmer planted herself in a chair in his office and declared, "I shall not go away until I am paid by somebody." Although veterans of the war often found themselves in a simi- lar position, the men of the 109th later showed their appreciation by sending "Aunt Becky" a check for $165 from their own pockets. (She wouldn't receive an Army pension until 1896.) In 1867, Palmer married a building contractor named David C. Young and moved to Iowa. She also published a memoir about her wartime service, followed by many newspaper interviews and speaking engagements. Some of her anecdotes seemed to grow in the telling, but when she died in 1908, she was still a well-known war hero, much beloved by the men she had cared for. Jon Garrison, RN, MSN, works in pediatric kidney transplant and writes in his spare time about life, health, technology and connection. You can reach him at garrison.jdg@gmail.com WN LIFE DURING WARTIME Sarah A. Palmer's memoir The Story of Aunt Becky's Army Life (pictured on the facing page) is still in print today. The illustrations above are etchings from that book. Top: A surgical operation is performed in an Army tent. Center: An Army nurse in her quarters. Bottom: A doctor attends wound- ed soldiers in an infirmary tent. Palmer was willing to defy the Army doctors if she thought it necessary.