Amelia J. Gill

Pension File: 574180, 335866
P.O.: 141 Pembroke St, Boston, MA
Service: Sanitary Commission nurse on hospital ships S.R. Spaulding and Webster, Columbia Hospital, D.C., Beaufort and Hilton Head, South Carolina, and in Florida, between 1861 and 1865
Applied: 1886
Status: Accepted (Special Act)

Amelia J. Gill, from the MOLLUS database

Gill's pension file is one of those that could be so spectacular, if only more documents had survived! We know from the few document in her file that she was born about 1823 in Maine, and that she volunteered to work for the US Sanitary Commission shortly after the war began.  She spent the first two years of the war working on hospital ships and in Washington, D.C. until she was transferred to the southern theatre of operations in October, 1863, where she worked in South Carolina and Florida.
This is the part where the benefit of working piecemeal on these pensions for two years comes in, because I can tell you which other nurses Gill likely served with during her time with the army.  Her first port of call, Columbian College Hospital, was full of female nurses, including Charlotte Bradford, Adelia Ferris, Clara B. Hoyt, and Jane Howard.  Working on the Daniel Webster, the first hospital ship commissioned during the Civil War and outfitted entirely by the USSC, Gill likely worked alongside Amy Morris Bradley (whose pension I have but haven't posted...), Annie Etheridge (actually a vivandiere rather than a nurse, but still a woman I'm immensely interested in) and Helen Gilson.  The southern hospitals had significantly fewer women serving in them--most likely because of their nearness to the front lines--but even there Gill likely crossed paths with several women.  Given the overlap I've seen in several pensions, nurses testifying on behalf of each other, etc., I have high hopes that one of those files will have something on Gill.

The Daniel Webster

Gill finally left the service at the close of the war and moved to Boston, where apparently she fell on hard times.  In 1885 she applied for, and received, a $300 annuity from the Massachusetts General Court for her wartime service.  Clearly this wasn't enough, because the next year, Congress awarded her a $25 pension (well done, Gill!).  It probably helped that she produced testimonials from an influential journalist, Mr. Coffin, and Mr. Knapp, who directed the USSC, as well as a pass written for her by President Lincoln himself (which, to my immense frustration, was not in the file!)  After that, however, Gill's file dries up.  It's not even clear when her pension was dropped.  I have tentatively identified a grave in Biddeford, ME, as hers, which puts her date of death at 1889, but at the moment it's impossible to tell.