Estelle Johnson

Pension File: 1131323
P.O.: Holyoke, Massachusetts
Service: regimental nurse, 4th Vermont
Applied: 1892
Status: Rejected

Before I go ahead with Estelle Johnson, I wanted to give everyone a quick update on the thesis work.  I finished going over the regimental nurses on Sunday and am busy writing up everything.  I'm actually rather pleased with how this chapter is turning out.  I've only touched on a fraction of the things I want to talk about, so that page count will hopefully skyrocket--the minimum page count is fifty, so please send good vibes my way.  Since I haven't gone on to another group of nurses though, you, my lovely readers, are stuck with another regimental nurse...and probably will be for the rest of the week.  After that I promise, we'll move on to another group.
What to say about Estelle Johnson?  She must have been tough as nails.  She enlisted as a nurse alongside her sister, Lydia Wood, when it became clear that both their husbands were going to enlist, and followed the regiment to Camp Griffen.  Both her husband and sister became sick shortly after their arrival.  Mr. Johnson pulled through and was discharged in March, 1862, but Lydia didn't.  Her body was shipped home for burial.
Estelle's army career ended shortly after her husband's discharge when she decided to return home with him.  Insert the typical thirty year gap, and we next catch up with Estelle in 1892 when she applies for a pension and her backpay.  There was the old bit about women not being allowed to stay in the camps or follow the regiment on the march, and the usual wrangling about lack of records, to which Johnson responded by furnishing affidavits from comrades (all the commanding officers were dead by now), and which the Bureau declared insufficient.  Johnson had more reason than most to be angry at this; she and her sister had drawn rations and signed the paybook along with the enlisted men, they should have been in the books.  Civil War record keeping...aisch.
Since Johnson couldn't prove her service to the Bureau's satisfaction, it rejected her claim in December, 1898.  Johnson tried to get her case reopened, even writing to President McKinley for support, but after 1899, the file dries up. Which brings the total number of rejected regimental nurses (out of a total of 18) to 14.  Anyone else sensing a pattern?
Oh, if you want more information on Johnson, she has a "chapter" in Our Army Nurses by Mary G. Holland, published in 1897.  If it's not on googlebooks, the Archives should have digitized it.  Check it out!