Kate+Cumming

** Kate Cumming **

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/media_content/m-10571.jpg [|Picture of Me]

__** About Me **__
 * I was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1836.
 * Sometime in the 1840's my father moved from Montreal, Canada and then to Mobile, Alabama.
 * I then moved to Mobile, Alabama at a very young age.
 * I was a very active Christian and was always involved in my church.


 * After the Civil War began, my mother and two sister departed to England.
 * I, however, stayed behind with my father and brother.
 * My brother enlisted in the Confederate Army.
 * After this, I joined the home front relief effort, gathering supplies for hospitals.
 * I later heard a speech that advocated female nursing, which made me determined to volunteer as a nurse.
 * I then headed to Corinth, Mississippi were I cared for the recently wounded and dying soldiers from the Battle of Shiloh.
 * (My family opposed this, but I believed that all patriotic southern women should join the cause.)
 * Next, I transferred to Chattanooga, Tennessee were I healed many wounds from the battles such as the Battle of Chickamauga.
 * I continued nursing throughout Tenessee and Georgia until the war ended.


 * Not to brag or anything but... I maintained a personal diary that provides the most detailed and honest account of female nursing in the South during the war.


 * After the war, I returned home to Mobile, Alabama and published a day to day journal of my war time activities called, //"A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee"//, My published writings also include //"Gleanings from Southland", "The Bostonians", "The Rose of Elgin", "Isabella"// and other essays.
 * In Mobile, I wrote, taught school and music,remained active in my church, and in the United Daughters of the Confederacy.
 * It's debated when I passed away... either June 5, 1909 or June 7, 1909.


 * __An excerpt from my Diary:__ **
 * “A Methodist minister, Dr. Heustis, made a speech at the depot calling upon the people to send up food and nurses to Chickamauga, as General Bragg has gone after the enemy and expects to recapture Chattanooga. He urged all who could possibly go with supplies, to do so immediately, but said there was no place there for ladies.

“I made up my mind to go, though many begged me not to do so. Having friends in Ringgold, I knew I could not be very bad off; so collecting all the provisions and old linen I could, I started that afternoon. ”**