Maria M.C. Richards

Pension File: 990033, 547263
P.O.: Unionville, Connecticut
Service: volunteer nurse as several hospitals (see below)
Applied: 1890
Status: Accepted (special act)

Midterms are done (finally) so now I can get back to my thesis.  Richards was one of the nurses I had a pension file for, but, as you can see, her pension came from a special act, so...need a legislative file.  Half the time the legislative files aren't there--I have a suspicion as to where they are, but I'll save that for December--but Richards' file was there. Success!
Richards wrote to Representative Byron Cutchon, a Republican from Michigan and a former Union soldier whom she'd met in the service, asking for his help in securing a pension.  She had three children to educate, she wrote, and her health was deteriorating.  The "nervous strain of sympathy with the suffering, and the unaccustomed privations in mode of living," along with several months of fever after the end of her service in 1865 had permanently damaged her health.  Cutchon wrote back, agreeing to help, but the bill had to come from her district representative, so off to another congressman she went, this time Mr. W.E. Simonds.  Between the two of them, Cutchon and Simonds got the bill in front of Congress and it passed in February, 1891.  Richards didn't get the $25 she wanted, but she drew $12 a month until her death in 1912.
There's a detailed description of Richards' service in her affidavit--this woman was all over the place.  She took two Connecticut soldiers into her home even before the First Bull Run, then, since she lived in D.C. at the time (she was unmarried and living with her parents), worked at the Patent Office Hospital from its opening in August, 1861, until it temporarily closed in June, 1862, at which point she attached herself to the Army of the Potomac, working at Fortress Monroe, on hospital transports (apparently the boat was actually fired on once!) and field hospitals during the Peninsula Campaign and Antietam.  After Antietam she remained at Smoketown Hospital until May, 1863, when she transferred to Annapolis and remained there for the remainder of the war.  With that kind of service, I was really hoping to find some primary sources on her, so I went to check google books.  And guess what I found? A list of army nurses created by the Woman's Relief Corps in 1888 Convention Report that I didn't know about...I am miffed.  More information on Richards is going to have to wait until I go through the Convention Report, but there were some interesting things in Richards' file that will make their way into my rough draft, her description of her physical condition for one, and her brief mention of payment for another (she only received pay for two months, and that was because a "tyrannical" surgeon threatened to remove her if she did not sign the pay rolls).  Her acquaintance with a member of the House of Representatives is also interesting.  And then, of course, there's her connection to the WRC...
As a member of the WRC, Richards probably knew that the Army Nurses Pension Act was supposed to go before Congress some time in 1892.  Even if she didn't, Cutchon mentioned the Act in his reply to her first letter.  So why did she go ahead with it?  Was it because she wanted the $25 instead of $12?  Did she know something about the progress of the bill that I don't?  Always there are more questions...