Kate Cumming, A Report on "Kate", the Journal of a Confederate Nurse (part 2)

Kate Cumming:  Confederate Nurse 

(A report by Dana Casey Jones to the Prattville Dragoons SCV Camp 1524 2/14/2019)

Kate was born in Edinburg Scotland in 1835.   As a note, this date is from the Library of Congress, but Kate’s obituary printed in the Mobile and Birmingham newspapers gave her death date of June 5, 1909 and her age of 80 which would have made her birth year 1828 or 29. Her family migrated to Montreal as a child and then on to Mobile where they made their permanent home.   This was during a time when Mobile was prospering as the second largest cotton port in the States.  Kate grew up very conscious of her Scottish background but took on the Southerner role will fervor.  She wrote of the conflict between the North and the South, as similar to the Scotland’s constant struggle with England for her freedom.  She was passionate about Southern rights because of that background.  In my opinion, she was very much a celebrated Rebel.

When the war broke out, Kate was ill so she could not leave Mobile for several months.  Although, she did volunteer to make necessary items for the soldiers.  The next spring of 62, she left on April the 7^th, with a few other women headed to Okolona, MS then Corinth.  She earned her way to matron nurse, or superintendent of nursing in the Army of Tennessee and served faithfully until the very end.  Her places of service consisted of:  Chattanooga, Montgomery, West Point, Atlanta, Dalton, Selma, Kingston, Rome, Newnan, Ringgold, Marietta, Opelika, Columbus, and Gainseville, AL. 

The reason why there are so many cities where she served is indicative of the uniqueness of the Confederate hospital history. 

Remember that most officials believed that the war would be over within a few months.  When this proved to be false, the CSA rushed to pattern their hospital system after what was known from the USA.

Within the first year, the South realized that as the North invaded our territory, the hospital system would have to be almost entirely mobilized.  Dr. Stout was instrumental in the birth of this feat and Kate mentions him periodically throughout her book.  Samuel Hollingsworth Stout (1822-1903) was born in Nashville, Tennessee.  At the age of 13 he entered the University of Tennessee where he received his medical degree in 1842.  He practiced medicine in Nashville for one year. He then became a prosperous farmer in Giles County, Tennessee.  At the outbreak of the War he entered Confederate service and rose rapidly to responsible positions in the medical department. He became the Surgeon and Medical Director of Hospitals for the Army of Tennessee and was chiefly responsible for mobilization of hospitals. He is known as a true medical pioneer.  He was instrumental in making use of women as nurses in the army.  He created a system of bartering and foraging for food and supplies to make his patients more comfortable.  He purchased a printing press to print blank forms for hospital use which also saved the army thousands in funds that could be better used for his wounded soldiers.  He designed architecturally efficient hospital units that promoted the most efficient and comfortable quarters for the ill.  His most innovative creation was the mobile hospital units that stretched for a hundred miles before Sherman’s March to the Sea.  Kate Cumming was continuously on the move with these units.

It was the mobility of the hospitals that kept them in existence at all.  The CSA medical inspector, E. Covey, said of the mobilized units:

“Ever since I began my tour of inspection, the hospitals of this department have been in a migratory state, and I have been fully able to appreciate both the trial of the medical officer and the hardships of the sick soldier; both of which have been trying in the extreme.  The entire line of hospitals on the Atlanta Rd., from Augustus to West Point, has been abandoned.  Of course, all the points North of this road have been rendered useless to us either by occupation of the enemy or their proximity to his lines.  This has necessitated the still greater scattering of, the already too much scattered hospitals, and squatting them in little towns, where every available house, from a common grocery, to the town church, has been taken for their purposes; and in most instances, buildings so taken have been entirely unfit for the treatment of the sick and wounded.”

By October 1, 1864, all hospitals were ordered to Columbus Georgia, two weeks later they were moved to Opelika.  They continued to move about until the last official order of the medical department was given to the Army of Tennessee issued from Atlanta on April 27^th, 1865. 

President Davis himself paid tribute to the efficiency of this hospital system when he stated, “The only department that was not demoralized was the Hospital department which was well in hand and doing efficient service until the end of the war.”

Throughout Kate’s journal she gives great details to names and units she served.  Some of which are:  Ketchum’s Battery, organized in Mobile in 1861, Fowler’s, Lumsden’s and Tarrant’s batteries; Alabama infantry units—3^rd, 4^th, 21^st, 22^nd, 24^th, 29^th, 32^nd, 36^th, and 38^th.  She also mentions units from other Confederate States.