Sallie Chapman Gordon Law

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Sallie Chapman Gordon Law (born August 27, 1805 in Wilkes , North Carolina , † June 28, 1894 in Memphis , Tennessee ) was the first known Confederate nurse of the Civil War and organizer of various hospitals. She was the president of the Southern Mothers' Association and was called the Mother of the Confederacy , (German mother of the Confederation).

biography

Sarah Chapman Gordon was born on August 27, 1805 in Wilkes, North Carolina, to Chapman Gordon and Charity King Gordon. Her father was from Virginia and had fought in the Battle of Kings Mountain and Charity King, and subsequently served under Thomas Sumter and Francis Marion . Law married the doctor John Sandiford Law on January 25, 1825 in Eatonton, Georgia . The couple first moved to Forsyth , where John Law practiced medicine until 1834. He then moved his practice to Columbia, Tennessee , where he stayed until his death in 1843. The Laws had seven daughters and a son, John Gordon Law, a well-known preacher who served in the Confederate Army.

Law was the president and founding member of the Southern Mothers' Association (also Society of Southern Mothers, German Association of Mothers of the South), a group of women from the Second Presbyterian Church in Memphis, Tennessee . Even before Tennessee split off from the Union , the Southern Mothers began making uniforms for the soldiers. First in Mrs. Miles Owen's house, later more women joined and they moved their activities to the basement of the Second Presbyterian Church . This was made possible because the church council closed the church after Pastor Grundy refused to pray for the soldiers of the south.

In order to meet the needs of the sick Confederate soldiers, the women organized from Memphis called roadside hospitals (dt. Hospitals roadside ) in private houses their supporters. Law's first major project was the organization of the Southern Mothers' Hospital in Memphis in April 1861. The hospital did an excellent job after the Battle of Shiloh . There soldiers were supplied regardless of their convictions for or against the south. Law then went to La Grange, Georgia and worked at the Law Hospital , which was named after her.

When the donations of supplies and clothing exceeded the hospital's needs, Law began distributing the supplies elsewhere. After Union forces took Memphis, Law left the city and personally distributed the goods wherever they saw a need. When the war ended, the Southern Mothers' Association she led was instrumental in establishing the Confederate Historical Association , of which Jefferson Davis was one of the early members . The association erected monuments, marked graves, and collected and distributed historical data on the south and its fate.

Law published Reminiscences of the War of the Sixties between the North and the South in 1892 , in which she described her experiences and efforts. She died on June 28, 1894 in Memphis, Tennessee.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Sarah Chapman Law: Reminiscences of the War of the Sixties between the North and South Memphis, Tennessee, 1892 (English, available as PDF)
personal data
SURNAME Law, Sallie Chapman Gordon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gordon, Sallie Chapman (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American Nurse (Confederate States)
DATE OF BIRTH August 27, 1805
PLACE OF BIRTH Wilkes , North Carolina
DATE OF DEATH June 28, 1894
Place of death Memphis , Tennessee