author
Adelaide W. Smith
1831–1914
A Civil War nurse and memoirist, she wrote with the directness of someone who had seen the war up close. Her recollections bring battlefield hospitals, wounded soldiers, and the everyday courage of wartime care vividly to life.
1 Audiobook
Reminiscences of an army nurse during the Civil War
by Adelaide W. Smith
About the author
Born in Brooklyn in 1831, Adelaide W. Smith became known for her service as a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War. Sources on her life describe her as the only woman from Brooklyn to serve as a nurse along the front lines, where she was known in camp as "Miss Ada" or "The Colonel."
Her best-known book, Reminiscences of an Army Nurse During the Civil War, was published in 1911. Written from firsthand experience, it offers a plainspoken account of hospital work, military life, and the human cost of the war.
Smith later became involved in the women's suffrage movement. She died in Brooklyn on December 30, 1914, leaving behind a memoir valued for its personal, eyewitness view of Civil War nursing.