Sophronia E. Bucklin (1828–1902, in other sources listed as "Sophronia Brecklin") was a nurse during the American Civil War. From

Auburn, New York Auburn is a city in Cayuga County, New York, United States. Located at the north end of Owasco Lake, one of the Finger Lakes in Central New York, the city had a population of 26,866 at the 2020 census. It is the largest city of Cayuga County, the ...

, Bucklin served for almost three years of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

. She worked with numerous hospitals and was present at many notable battles throughout the latter half of the war, until

General Lee Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807 – October 12, 1870) was a Confederate general during the American Civil War, towards the end of which he was appointed the overall commander of the Confederate States Army. He led the Army of North ...

's surrender. Bucklin was devoted to the war effort, and though dependent on wages for her own living, felt the "same patriotism" as male volunteers.

Civil War service

At the outbreak of the war, Bucklin was in her late 20s to early 30s, living independently as a seamstress in Auburn, New York. She enlisted her services for the

Union Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''Un ...

effort, and left for the front on September 17, 1862 unaccompanied. As one of the many women serving under

Dorothea Dix Dorothea Lynde Dix (April 4, 1802July 17, 1887) was an American advocate on behalf of the indigent mentally ill who, through a vigorous and sustained program of lobbying state legislatures and the United States Congress, created the first gene ...

, Bucklin's service began at the Judiciary Hospital. A mere three months later, she was transferred to a Baptist church to take care of a nurse who had become ill. Bucklin's most notable service, however, took place when she was moved to a point lookout at Chesapeake Bay for the winter. Here, she cared for men fighting at the battles of

Antietam The Battle of Antietam (), or Battle of Sharpsburg particularly in the Southern United States, was a battle of the American Civil War fought on September 17, 1862, between Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and Union ...

, Bull Run, and Fredericksburg. In March, Bucklin moved again to Alexandria, Virginia, and then went on to serve at Gettysburg as a field nurse. She recounts in a letter to Mary G. Holland that she was among the first to arrive at Gettysburg and one of the last to leave. Upon her arrival, Bucklin was faced with a line of soldiers awaiting surgery a mile and a half long. At the completion of Gettysburg, Bucklin spent the next seven or eight months nearby at Stoneman's Cavalry Hospital near

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In the winter of 1863, Bucklin came down with a fever. Her illness proved to be quite extensive, and in her aforementioned letter to Holland she writes that the other hospital staff left her for dead. Her illness, however, did not deter her from caring for patients. All in all, Bucklin completed nearly three years total of service. She recounted her wartime experiences in her 1869 book, ''In Hospital and Camp: A Woman's Record of Thrilling Incidents Among the Wounded in the Late War''. She died in Ithaca, New York, in 1902.

Civil War service

References

Further reading