Julia Freeman

Pension File: 818007, 505512
P.O.: Marshall, Michigan
Service: agent for the Michigan Soldiers Aid Society
Applied: 1889
Status: Accepted (special act)

We've hit my first bit of writer's block.  Oh, goodie.  So the rough draft is on the back burner until tomorrow morning, and then it's a full day session in Swem.
Anyway, here's your daily dose of new pension files:
Julia Freeman, nee Wheelock, agent for the Michigan Soldiers Aid Society.  She served at Fredericksburg, White House Landing, City Point, Strasburg, and Falmouth, Virginia over the course of three years.  During her last posting at City Point she contracted typhoid fever and spent the next several months bed-bound and under the care of Dr. Bliss, the surgeon in charge of Armory Square Hospital.  When Freeman applied for her pension in 1889 (she was married by now), she claimed to still be suffering from the effects of the disease.  In 1890, Congress granted her a $12 pension--it was discontinued in 1903 after Freeman failed to collect her check for over three years.
Freeman is another one of those nurses I would dearly love to dig into more.  For one, she published a memoir in 1870, called "Boys in White," drawing on the diary she kept throughout the war.  If the letters in the pension file are any indication, it'll be a fascinating read.  For instance, when Freeman wrote Mr. Chipman (the Congressman in charge of her claim) in 1890, she commented that "it seems to me that the general nurses bill is not exactly just to all--whether they served three months or three years, besides nurses who were appointed by Miss Dix or by the Sur. Gen'l received pay while I worked for nothing, sacrificed health, and, almost, life.  On the "thesis" level, it demonstrates that Freeman was aware of what was going on with the ANPA, even though I can't find any connection between her and the WRC or the ANA.  On a deeper level, though, it speaks to a rift I and other scholars have noticed between paid and volunteer nurses.  I've never seen it articulated quite this bluntly before, though.  Definitely need to get my hands on "Boys in White" and get a handle on this woman.