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“Economy Rules the Day:”
The Civil War Sacrifices of Judith Walker McGuire
by Tim Sheehan

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Women Regarded as Hospital Pests

By 1862, the initial euphoria of women in hospitals waned. The Confederacy’s military did hire women as matrons to manage the cooking and sanitary conditions of hospital wards. However, there were concerns about women visitors being in the way. The Daily Dispatch of Richmond held the opinion that “the idle and the curious” should not be in hospitals to crowd around a dying person. The paper provided the following scene to back it's beliefs:

Lady (at the bedside of a sick soldier) - How d’ye do? Is there anything you want?
Soldier, (curly) - No, I believe not.
Lady - Is there anything I can do for you?
Soldier, (with anxiety) - No, I think not.
Lady - Oh, I do want to do something for you. Can’t I wash your hands and face?
Soldier- Well, if you want to right bad, I reckon you can; but if you do, you will be the fourteenth lady who has done so this morning!

Doctors and military officials considered women like Judith McGuire pests. In their view, these women did nothing but crowd bedsides talking and reading to soldiers, thwarting the professional staff from doing their job.(40)

Judith McGuire did encounter resistance against her desire to assist the wounded. In January of 1862, Willie B. Phelps, a relative of McGuire, lost his arm due to a wound received during the Battle of Dranesville. McGuire wanted to assist him during his stay in a Centerville, Virginia hospital. She claimed that a letter she received instructed her not to go because “ladies would be in the way in so small a hospital.”(41)

Due to the poor health of her husband, the McGuires left Richmond during the summer of 1862 and traveled to Lynchburg and Charlottesville Virginia. That August, Judith McGuire went to a large Lynchburg hospital, which is unnamed in the Diary. McGuire knew two matrons at this hospital. Two associations controlled the visitation of women to Lynchburg’s hospitals. The Lynchburg Hospital Association had a hold on the majority of Lynchburg’s military hospitals. According to an Association advertisement, a group of women went to the Hospitals each day, but only when requested by hospital surgeons. The Senior Surgeon, Dr. William Owens, preferred to have women completely out of hospitals for, in his opinion, they interfered with doctors’ work Therefore, the Hospital Association was a control mechanism that limited women to participate in certain activities that didn’t require their actual presence in the hospital wards. Contributions of food and goods by women appear to be the only acceptable involvement of women in Dr. Owens’ hospitals. As a result of Dr. Owens’ attitude towards female participation in hospitals, Lucy Mina Otey opened the Ladies Relief Hospital in August 1861. This Hospital gave Lynchburg’s women an opportunity to contribute in a more personal fashion.(42)

©2005-2012 Tim Sheehan tim@historynut.info

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This page last updated 1 January 2012