Kate Cumming

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, her family left for the United States when Cumming was still young, settling finally in Mobile, Alabama.[2][3] At the outbreak of the Civil War, Cumming's mother and two sisters left for England, leaving Cumming behind with her father and brother.[1] Against her family's wishes, in April 1862, Cumming volunteered as a nurse in a Confederate hospital located in Corinth, Mississippi, near the location of the Battle of Shiloh after her brother enlisted in the 21st Alabama Infantry.[4][5] She was inspired to serve by Florence Nightingale as well as Reverend Benjamin M. Miller, who called women specifically to aid the Confederacy.[2]

Cumming began her service at the Mississippi/Tennessee border at the Battle of Shiloh.[2] The Confederacy did not have an organized medical force at the war's inception, making the efforts of nurses like Cumming crucial for Confederate survival.[1] As the medical department became more organized, Cumming occupied a matron position, and traveled with the mobile hospitals of Dr. Samuel Stout.[1] Cumming was an active nurse throughout the war, which was unusual as nurses usually served temporarily.[2] Cumming eventually became the head of food and housekeeping departments in multiple hospitals in Georgia.[6]

"I could fill whole people with descriptions of the scenes I had," wrote Cumming of her battlefield experience.[5] It is clear in her writings that Cumming knew nurses to be vital to the war effort.[5] Cumming maintained a diary throughout her wartime experience, offering readers insight into life of a woman nurse in the war effort.[1] Cumming's diary was published in 1866 under the title A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee.[6]

At the end of the war, Cumming returned home to Mobile. She published her wartime experiences in 1866, titled A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee from the Battle of Shiloh to the End of the War.[2] This journal has become one of the few primary sources regarding the work of Confederate nurses.[7] In 1874, she moved to Birmingham, Alabama, with her father, where she worked with a teacher and was an active member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.[2] She died in Birmingham on June 5, 1909. She is buried in Georgia.[2]