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.

Ellen Forbes Tolman

Pension File: 574183, 335290 (Special Act)
P.O.: Lawrence, Massachusetts
Service: various hospitals around D.C. from July, 1861 to February, 1863
Applied: 1886
Status: Accepted

Brace yourselves: here's a pension file I don't actually have. Horror!  So why do I have her up here?  Until a few weeks ago, I had no idea Tolman existed.  I didn't find her in my pre-D.C. survey for special acts, nor did she turn up while I was going through legislative files.  Instead, I found her through something of a back door.  While I was in D.C. she turned up in one of the files (Clara Hoyt) as a pension attorney.  I put her on the back burner though in favor of other rabbit holes.  When she turned up as attorney for two more women, and a witness for a third, I knew I had to do some serious digging.  Until that point, I had no idea she was ever a nurse!  But the more I dug, the more I realized I needed to include her in my study.
Here's a brief sketch based on what I've been able to find: According to her petition to Congress for a Special Act, Ellen Forbes (her maiden name) left her home in Maine just after the Battle of Bull Run to nurse in Washington.  She showed no signed of stopping until February, 1863, when she contracted typhus.  In her petition to Congress she wrote that "her attack of fever was proceeded by convulsions, and for twelve days thereafter all was a blank to her."  Tolman pulled through, but malarial abscesses kept her bed-bound for several more months, and on crutches for several more.  She returned to Washington in September, but new abscesses appeared and she returned home, sick again.
Here's the silver lining to the cloud: in February, 1864, Ellen Forbes married Eleazer Tolman from the 2nd Maine.  Schultz hints that they met while Tolman was in the hospital in D.C.--he was suffering from pleurisy and was discharged in 1862.  The two settled down in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and had three children.  Tolman applied for, and was granted, a $25 pension in 1886, endorsed by VP Hamlin and several respected veterans.  Then, in 1892, she pops in three completely unrelated pension files: Clara B. Hoyt, Emily Taylor, and Georgiana Smith.  There is nothing I can find to link these three women together other than the fact they served as nurses.  They never served in the same hospital, lived in the same area, nothing.  I'm betting, though, that it's a connection through the WRC or the Army Nurses Association.  The only way to find out for sure is to go look through her papers at the Maine Historical Society.  I love it when my nurses leave a paper trail.

Clara B. Hoyt

Pension File: 1133681
P.O.: Rush Center, Kansas
Service: Nurse at Columbian College Hospital and Point of Rocks Hospital
Applied: 1891
Status: Rejected

This is one the annoying files where you know there's more somewhere, but for whatever reason it's impossible to find.  Hoyt has a legislative file--and an interesting one at that--but her pension file is MIA.  I've requested it twice, and each time I've gotten a rejection slip.  I am not happy.
A brief of sketch of Hoyt based on what her legislative file contains: Hoyt served as a nurse under the direction of Dorothea Dix under her maiden name, Clara B. Clark, from the fall of 1864 to around the 20th of May, 1865.  After the war, Clara married and moved from her home in New York to Kansas.  In 1889 she contacted Congressman Ingalls about obtaining a pension through a Special Act.  Ingalls did what he could, and the bill was brought before the Senate twice, one in May, 1890, and again in December, 1891, but each time it was referred back to Committee.  Search me as to why.  Once the 1892 Act passed, Hoyt applied for a pension through the Bureau rather than a Special Act--and as a result, the file ends, which is why I'd so like to get my hands on that file!  I know her claim was rejected, since her pension file number doesn't have a certificate number (the first number, and generally the only one, is the application number, and the second is the certificate number, only given when a person is granted a pension).
Here come the surprises:
First, another reason why I'd love to get that pension file: Hoyt's attorney was named Ellen S. Tolman of Lawrence, Massachusetts  Unless I'm reading that name incorrectly, or Ellen was originally a guy's name ("Oh, Ashley, Ashley!!"), we have a female lawyer on our hands!  There's also the question of why Hoyt hired an attorney living in Massachusetts when she herself lived in Kansas.
Second, the WRC made a guest appearance in the file.  This time it wasn't Annie Wittenmyer, it was Sarah E. Fuller, a former president and Secretary of the National Pension Committee.  In 1890, Fuller wrote Ingalls a letter in support of Hoyt's claim, and attached an "Army Nurses Blank" provided by the WRC.  My guess is that the WRC used these forms in their own pension process--the WRC provided pensions to its members, but emphasized these were supposed to be temporary relief.  The blank asks who commissioned the nurse, dates of enrollment and discharge, age at enrollment, if the applicant has any papers to back her claim, her pecuniary circumstances, marital status, state of health, and how employed.  That's how I know that Hoyt suffered from rheumatism and catarrh, and her pecuniary circumstances were "at present not flattering."  It also presents another research possibility--where are the WRC-issued pensions, and can I use the information in those files to supplement what I've gathered from the Archives?  Another rabbit hole! Madness!