In recent years, many historians have sought to correct the record regarding women's participation in significant events that have shaped U.S. history. More has come to light about women wearing military uniforms and taking up arms during the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. We have also come to recognize the critical role that women played in nursing the wounded in areas often under enemy fire, often without mention or reward.
Susannah Clark of Jonesboro, Indiana, was a Civil War nurse who may have been the first woman recognized and rewarded for her heroic efforts on behalf of the Union Army's wounded.
Union veterans are being treated for wounds.
A brief obituary in the January 4, 1920, Marion Leader-Tribune recorded the passing of Susannah D. Clark of Jonesboro, Indiana. Two grandsons survived her. A few days later, her hometown paper, the Jonesboro Journal, published a much longer article headed with SUSANNAH CLARK, CIVIL WAR NURSE TAKEN BY DEATH.
A Civil War records search revealed that Mrs. Clark was awarded a Federal pension in 1890 for her service as a U.S. Army Nurse during the Civil War. An article published in the Philadelphia Enquirer in 1899 recounts her record during that war. She had volunteered to make regimental flags for the departing units from her hometown of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Graduating from that task to feeding wounded soldiers returning from the front, Clark was pressed into service as a nurse when the wounded came pouring in from Bull Run. As Mrs. Clark’s reputation spread, physicians requested her services throughout the war.
After the war, Nurse Clark moved to Jonesboro, Indiana, to be near her only surviving relatives, her grandsons Darr and Dan Dailey. Later, in 1898, the sixty-three-year-old widow went to Lexington, Kentucky, where her grandsons, who had joined the 160th Volunteer Infantry during the Spanish-American War, were ill. She lived at the hospital for days, managing the care of her grandsons and, soon, the care of the soldiers throughout the hospital. Secretary of War Alger recognized her service.
Spanish-American War Veteran, Indiana 160th Indiana Volunteer Infantry
Susannah Clark remained active for most of her remaining years. She was president of the Indiana Nurses Association and an officer of the Marion Hospital Association. She is buried in an unmarked grave in Riverside Cemetery, Gas City, Indiana.
by William F.Munn
Grant County Historian
Marion Leader Tribune 01/04/1920
Jonesboro Journal 01/09/1920
Philadelphia Inquirer 09/04/1899
American Battlefield Trust https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/everyday-life-civil-war-hospital
A Brief History of the Spanish American War https://www.spanamwar.com/160thIndiana.html
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