Margaret J. Fletcher

Pension File: 770636, 501987
P.O.: Harrisburg, Illinois
Service: 80th Illinois; Hospital No. 3, Lebanon, and Hospital No. 20, Louisville, from 1862-1864; Perryville
Applied: 1889
Status: Accepted (Special Act)

This was a very confusing file to go through.  At first it looked like there were two Margaret Fletchers: a nurse from Illinois and a widow from California.  Fortunately for my sanity and the people at the Archives there is only one Margaret J. Fletcher, and she is both a nurse and a widow.
Fletcher, an Irish immigrant, married her husband William a few years before the outbreak of the war.  William enlisted in the 80th Illinois as a cook and, for whatever, reason, Margaret went with him as a regimental nurse.  Eventually they ended up at Hospital No. 3 in Lebanon, Kentucky, and then Hospital No. 20 in Louisville as permanent staff members.  Somewhere in there Margaret made her way to the aftermath of the Battle of Perryville.  There were no bandages, so, in traditional heroic fashion, Fletcher tore up her undergarments to supply the needed dressings.
Margaret escaped the war no worse for wear, but old age and rheumatism caught up with her, and Fletcher found herself unable to perform the odd nursing jobs she'd picked up after the war.  So, Fletcher applied for a special act, backed by the president of her local Woman's Relief Corps, Rhodes A. Durham. The bill was introduced on December 18, 1889, and passed April 21, 1890.
Now here comes the strange and confusing bit.  In 1906, someone, probably the postmaster who looked after pensions in Harrisburg, IL, reported Fletcher dead.  Apparently, though, she'd moved to Oakland, California.  She put in two requests for an increase in pension, which leads me to suspect her husband had passed, and joined the local WRC Post.  Then she went and disappeared--again--around 1916.  After three years her post president, Mrs. Brinkerhoff, wrote the Bureau asking for her address, but all they could tell her was that she was still alive and listed Coulterville, Illinois as her post office.
Fletcher got her increase in 1920 from a general act (Congress finally realized that $12 a month was not going to cut it for these women, what with these little things like inflation and old age), and started receiving $30 a month.  Unfortunately, she didn't get to enjoy it for very long.  Margaret Fletcher passed away on Christmas Eve, 1923, still living in Coulterville, with her brother and his family beside her.