Mary Ann's Role In The Civil War

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Mary Ann was just a wife of a soldier working as a nurse during the Civil war. Her life was quite different from the rest and definitely deserves recognition for what she has accomplished in her lifetime. Mary started out as a housewife, like most wives back then, in Gettysburg, PA. During the Civil War, she became a nurse near a campground in Gettysburg, as her husband was fighting for the union. She was doing regular nurse things, healing the injured, and saving the critically wounded.

During her practices in nursing, a trauma was called in. A mass cleanup of injured was needed, so Mary did what was needed and saved lives.

“I heard the men cry in agony, half were missing limbs, it changed me forever. I will …show more content…

Mary was a woman, and women were not allowed to fight in the war, so she changed herself into a man. Mary ann is now Thomas Edward

“I always get looks, do you think they know?”

So how did Mary do it, how did she trick the recruitment officers into thinking she was a man. In her diary herself she tells us everything, she was a twisted woman. She …show more content…

At first, things were relatively ‘easy’ for Thomas no major battles and no deathly injuries, She wishes she could say the same about her Husband William. William caught Pneumonia during the war and really drained Thomas, she was unstable, which eventually got her downgraded to a private. Which got her put into more battles specifically the Battle of Gettysburg, she fought for her hometown. Thomas fought hard for the union but her journey was cut to an end when her leg was blown off by a Confederate soldier.

“Now I understand why those men were crying, I understand why this war needs to end, I understand everything now,” She wrote this passage while she was hospitalized.

Us at the Chester County Times luckily got to speak to her mother.

July 9th, 1883, Gettysburg Pennsylvania

“ 20 years after Mary’s death, and we still don 't really have any idea why she would do this, why do you think Mary decided this?” I ask

“ Mary was always someone to be the first to say hello to everyone while she was walking since she was little, she always wanted to see a change in the world.”

“So do you think the only way she could see it change is by helping with making a