Rose Russell

Pension File: 1139608, 868306
P.O.: 819 West Main Street, Vicksburg, Mississippi
Service: Vicksburg Field Hospital and Ward A, McPherson Hospital
Applied: 1892
Status: Accepted

I was originally going to save this for July, but then, after what happened in Charleston, I felt I couldn't wait.
So who was Rose Russell?  Well, for those of you who saw my previous post on her, you know she was a former slave at Glasser Plantation in Mississippi.  Her parents were George Gibson, born in Kentucky, and Hannah, born in Virginia.  Shortly before the siege of Vicksburg Grant's men came to the plantation asking for volunteers to work for the army.  Rose volunteered.  She worked the wards at McPherson Hospital, and helped lift men out of ambulances, where they were "stacked like corded wood," and the blood covered the ground.  She served the entirety of the war, then settled down in Vicksburg, where she married Alexander Russell on March 20, 1870 (she sent in her marriage certificate).  They had ten children, five boys and five girls.
Russell lived a very long life.  She applied for a pension in 1892--the Bureau did actually have her name on record, which is astounding--and sent in a pass, several testimonials from nurses who worked alongside her (Phoebe Davis, Eliza Winston, and Jesse Johnson).  She also managed to get paid for the last two months of her service--apparently they hadn't paid her.  Now that is not something I've seen before.  And, of course, over half the money went to her lawyer.
And then we come to the 75th Gettysburg Anniversary that Russell's son mentions in her file.  My theory is this celebration was held locally, since Russell was nearly 95 years old at this point, but I don't have any evidence to back it up.
In a letter to the Bureau written after his mother's death, Howard Russell described the event, remembering that over the course of the day his mother met a number of ladies who asked after her, including one who turned out to be the granddaughter of the mistress of Glasser Plantation (her former owner).  The plantation, she said, had burned to the ground, as had the family bible with the names and birth dates of all the (now former) slaves.
To find this woman, a former slave, attending the 75th Anniversary of Gettysburg is somehow fitting.  Throughout my own research and my readings for graduate school I've found a great deal about how whites remembered and commemorated the war, but very little about how blacks did.  This single letter, however, is loaded with meaning.
1) Rose chose to attend this celebration, commemorating a symbolic turning point of the war which is typically portrayed as a very white narrative. When, after all, was the last time someone mentioned to you that Pickett's Charge was fought on property owned by a black man? Or that Gettysburg had a substantial black population?  Simply by being there, she is undermining that white narrative, inserting herself into the symbolic interpretation of the war.  She's also perhaps choosing (though we don't know for sure) to not commemorate the fall of Vicksburg, an event which she witnessed--though, given it's Vicksburg, the locals may have chosen not to commemorate it...still the choice of Gettysburg is intriguing.
2) This woman is 95 years old.  She's suffering from feminine problems and dysentery.  She did not make the choice to come to this celebration lightly.  This event meant something to her.
3) It's 75 years after Gettysburg.  If Russell is 95, there aren't that many people left who remember the battle.  So why is Vicksburg (of all places) choosing to celebrate this event, especially when it has nearly passed out of living memory?
4) Look at who she's mixing with!  She's speaking with blacks and whites alike--in Jim Crow Mississippi!  What is going on here that there is not only interracial mixing, but that whites are celebrating Gettysburg?!
I wish I knew more about the celebration as a whole, if there were others like it, the local significance of this event (a lead up to July 4th, or a distinct celebration in and of itself).  This is definitely something I want to explore more--a chapter in my dissertation perhaps?  But that's a rabbit hole for another day.  For now, given what's happened in Charleston, in Baltimore, in Ferguson, I just wanted to share that image with you: an old woman, a former slave, speaking with the descendant of the people who owned her seventy five years ago, commemorating, together, the downfall of that institution and way of life, and the battle and sacrifice that helped to bring that about, in one of the most unlikely places imaginable.  If they can do that in Jim Crow South...maybe there's hope for us yet.

Rose Russell

Pension File: 1139608, 868306
P.O.: Vicksburg, Mississippi
Service: contract nurse at McPherson Hospital, Vicksburg from 1862 to 1866
Applied: 1892
Status: Accepted

I know, I missed last night. I'm doing penance by posting two nurses tonight.  First, as promised, is Rose Russell, formerly Rose Gibson.  Like I said in my last post, Russell's file threw me for a loop, because there is nothing in the file to suggest that Russell was black until you hit the death certificate. And there it is: "negro."  No where, I repeat, no where in the file is there any hint that this woman was black.  I've across several white nurses who moved south after the war; also a fair number who are not literate and signed using a mark, just like Russell.  Since the War Department couldn't find any records of her service, there was nothing there to indicate her color, and the people who gave affidavits certainly never mentioned the fact--I suppose they never felt the need.  If there's nothing in the application then to suggest Russell was black, did the Bureau know?  And did that have anything to do with her getting her pension?  Another thing: was this something the Bureau was on the look-out for?  I'm keeping in mind the fact that based on the Carded Service Index put together in 1890 of all the recorded nurses the Bureau could find, blacks were mostly listed as laundresses and cooks, not nurses.  Based on this, was the Bureau likely to suspect a woman applying as a nurse was black--and did it matter?  That is the biggest question here, and the one I keep coming back to: did it matter?  I don't have enough black women plugged into my database yet to say one way or the other, but I've seen it go both ways.  Clara Watson's application was denied, if you remember that far back, but Malinda Grimes, who served at Yorktown Hospital, managed to get a Special Act through Congress compensating her for her services (not a pension, I know, but the fact she got the Act through at all is impressive)--and I know there are more in my files.  Better finish this Database quick before this drives me crazy.

Clara Watson

Pension File: 1141792
P.O.: Ebenezer, Pennsylvania
Service: nurse at General Hospital 5, 6, and 7 at Murfreesboro, Tennessee from December 31st, 1863 to end of the war
Filed: 1892
Status: Rejected

Most nurses were well into their seventies when they applied for a pension--by extension, they were in their thirties or forties when they served in the war.  Clara Watson, however, was only 22 when she began to work as a nurse.  She was my age.  And she'd already given birth to two daughters, Susan and Melissa, and had just run away from her owner, Doctor Allison.
Clara was another escaped slave, just like Mehala Edwards.
According to her affidavits, Clara and her two daughters ran away from Dr. Allison's farm on the Manchester Turnpike just after the Battle of Stone River in 1862.  Shortly after she began working at General Hospital 5 in Murfreesboro.  The only compensation she received, she claimed, were her rations.  After a year she was transferred to General Hospital 6, where she was paid $2.50 a week--roughly the same as a regular enlisted nurse.  There's some confusion as to dates, but Watson claimed she was transferred to Hospital 7 in June, 1865, and served there until the close of the war.
Once she was discharged, a man named Frank Speedy took her and her daughters to Indiana County, Pennsylvania, where she settled down.  I checked the census records: in 1870, a woman matching Watson's description was listed in Conemaugh, Indiana County, living with her husband John Watson, a man thirty years her senior, as well as four children: Susan, Frank, Martha, and Banks.  Watson also appeared in the 1880, 1900, and 1910 census.  She apparently gave birth to 8 children, and outlived at least six of them.
Watson applied for a pension in 1892 based on her service in Murfreesboro.  She supplied the names of at least half a dozen doctors and hospital stewards who could testify to her work, and ensisted that someone had placed her name on the rolls on several occasions.  Guess what the Bureau said? "Sorry, no record exists, and most of the people you named are not in our records or are dead.  Got anything else?"  When Watson couldn't produce any additional proof, they rejected her claim--took them three years to tell her.  But Watson tried again.  She sent a letter in 1897 asking what more she could do to prosecute her claim other than getting rid of her attorney, Frank Donahue, who apparently had done a less than stellar job.  "I am entitled to [my pension]," she wrote, "and have furnish [sic] evidence so it is now over four years since I made application."  The same thing happened: no records, no affidavits, rejection.  Watson tried a last time in 1910, this time enlisting her local Congressman.  Third time's the charm, right?  Wrong.  This is the Pension Bureau we're talking about.  Watson never got her pension.
I know that at least two black women received a pension: Ann Stokes and Maria Bear Tolivar.  And I have at least three black women who were rejected.  Time to do some comparisons and see what let those two women succeed where others failed.

Mehala Edwards

Pension: 701157
P.O.: New York City
Service: Nurse on hospital boats 'Elm City' and 'Louisiana'
Applied: 1888
Final Status: Rejected

Another day, another find.  Mehala Edwards' pension file was unremarkable until I came to the Surgeon General's report to the Pension Bureau about Edwards' service: "The name of Mahala Jackson [her maiden name] appears on a list of contrabands on board the steamer Elm City July 26" 1862 with remark, 'Received at Fort Monroe.'"
Turns out, Mehala was an escaped slave from King William County.  It looks like she followed the example of so many others and escaped to Fort Monroe soon after the war broke out (either July of 1861 or early 1862), and then enlisted as a nurse.  Mehala served on the 'Elm City' and the 'Louisiana' on the James River until the close of the war.
The pension file is sparse on what happened to Mehala after the war, but what there is paints a picture of a strong woman.  In 1888, she applied for a pension based on her service as a nurse, drawing on the precedents set by the Special Acts.  Her application was ultimately turned down because there was no law allowing pensions for nurses, but the fact that she took the initiative and applied anyway...here is a remarkable woman that the records have overlooked.  And there are probably dozens like her we haven't found yet.  Mehala was a reminder of one of the reasons I do what I do: to give these people a voice.  Hopefully, that's what I'll end up doing.
Cheers to you, Mehala.