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Book Reviews These are some reviews from a recent issue of
The Civil War News:
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A Southern Woman’s Story
by Phoebe Yates Pember.
Softcover, 110 pp., 2002 reprint. University of South Carolina Press, 937 Assembly St., Carolina Plaza, 8th Floor, Columbia, SC 29208, $14.95 plus shipping.
“Wisely he [the surgeon in chief] decided to have an educated and efficient woman at the head of his hospital...” This statement by Mrs. Pember set the tone for the entire book. Completely sure of herself, her upper-class superiority, and the righteousness of what she is doing, Pember walks the reader through the seamier side of warfare. Instead of the usual focus on the battles and glory in the Civil War, this reprint in the “American Civil War Classics” series provides first-hand accounts of the pain and suffering that were as much of the war as the fighting itself. In late 1862, 39-year-old Phoebe Yates Pember became chief matron of Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond, Va. She realistically describes suffering young men afraid to die, maggots swarming from open wounds, and both the sights and stench of death. Complicating matters were incompetent surgeons and nurses, thefts of whiskey, and spoiled, substandard food that they had to feed the wounded. Civilians also plagued Mrs. Pember, particularly families who came to visit their loved ones and then stayed in the hospital, interfering with operations and stealing food. One woman even managed to get pregnant while visiting her husband. This account also demonstrates common biases among upper-class Southerners. Mrs. Pember regularly disparages women of lower classes, attacks African-Americans, and declares that Virginians and Georgians were superior to all other Southerners. She also demonstrates, in Chapter 14 and elsewhere, that Southerners were not all noble, unified or self-sacrificing for “The Cause.” This book should be read in conjunction with any regular text on the Virginia Theater. It could also be compared with Jean V. Berlin’s A Confederate Nurse: The Diary of Ada W. Bacot.
William D. Young
William D. Young is a fulltime professor of history at Maple Woods Community College in Kansas City. He is the author of several books, including Fort Riley: Citadel of the Frontier West. He lives in historic Lawrence, Kan., with his wife and children.
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