Mother Bickerdyke A Mature Sense of Duty

Mother Bickerdyke A Mature Sense of Duty

By Kimberly Largent-Christopher

Brown-haired, blue-eyed Mary Ann Ball was born on July 19, 1817 in Knox County, OH to parents Hiram and Anna (Rodgers) Ball. Her time with Hiram and Anna was short-lived; both passed away while Mary Ann was still quite young. It was an aunt and uncle who took her in, raised her, and educated her in the art of botanical medicine. Mary Ann grew to be a confident young woman who attended Oberlin College for four years. Upon graduation, she further trained under Dr Reuben Mussey who was the head of the Ohio Medical College.

On April 27, 1847, twenty-year-old Mary Ann married Robert Bickerdyke, a widower from England whom she met in Cincinnati. He had two young sons from his previous marriage and Mary Ann, being fond of both, readily welcomed the boys into her life and loved them as though they were her own. It was a prophetic act to say the least.

The Bickerdyke family resided in Oberlin, OH for several years before Robert moved his family to Galesburg, IL to accommodate his business. Three years after the move, in 1859, Robert unexpectedly passed away. Mary Ann was forced to put her skills to use to support her family; she turned to what she knew best, botanical medicine. She was successful. In 1861, on a Sunday morning while attending the Galesburg Brick Congregation Church, Edward Beecher, (brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe) offered the sermon that morning. He read a letter from a Galesburg soldier who was faced with the poor conditions of camp life at Cairo, IL. The congregation was touched by the letter and immediately donated whatever supplies were needed. It was Mary Ann who was asked to accompany the supplies to Cairo. Her path was only beginning to unfold.

When Mary Ann arrived at Cairo with the supplies, she found the living conditions appalling; the mud floors were stained with blood, vomit and urine. She refused to ignore the deplorable conditions and set out to clean up the camp. Initially, her efforts were met with resistance, especially from the officers. She turned her focus to the enlisted who could easily be bribed with sweet-smelling fresh-baked food. The camp quickly took on an organized, sanitized appearance and the living conditions became tolerable—the men healthier.

Mary Ann quickly developed a network of contacts who could supply her with whatever she needed to keep her camp clean, efficient, and organized. On November 7, 1861, after the Battle of Belmont, “her” camp was so neat and sanitized that the army decided to erect a permanent hospital at Cairo. Mary Ann was tapped to oversee construction of it. With ease, she carried out the appointment and didn’t hesitate to delegate tasks to the highest-ranking officials assigned to Cairo. However, when the hospital was complete, an arrogant surgeon-in-charge relieved her of her duties at the hospital and bid her adieu. A flabbergasted Mary Ann sought out General Grant who quickly scrawled a note informing the surgeon that Mary Ann had just been appointed matron of Cairo Hospital. The surgeon, not at all pleased and visibly embarrassed, had no choice but to honor Mary Ann’s appointment.

Her role as matron was all-encompassing and included everything from cooking to cleaning to nursing to overseeing all supplies. The latter gave her the most difficulty as supplies were being stolen on a regular basis and she couldn’t finger the culprit. When she approached the arrogant surgeon-in-charge with her concerns, he brushed her off with the comment, “if you don’t like what goes on here, you should leave.” To which she confidently shot back, “If anyone goes from here, it’ll be you.” Always a quick-thinker, Mary Ann put several plans into action that would reveal the culprits who were stealing her supplies. She secretly “marked” all clothing that came into the hospital and upon finding anyone wearing it who shouldn’t have been, she would expose the guilty person and make him strip in front of the ward patients. To find out who was stealing her food, she laced baked pies with green peaches then waited to see who became violently ill—it was the surgeons and nurses.

At her wits end, she put in a request for a storage area that could be locked. She received such, but after the first night, the lock had been broken and items stolen. Mary Ann snatched the provost marshal and headed to see General Grant where she lodged formal complaints against hospital staff members and the surgeon-in-charge. Her complaint was so perfectly executed that the surgeon-in-charge and his staff were reprimanded and transferred to posts in the West. Grant appointed a new surgeon-in-charge who was willing to work with Mary Ann—even asked her to hand pick a replacement staff. Things were quickly running efficiently and effectively at the Cairo Hospital. The new hospital staff, officers, soldiers and co-workers grew to respect Mary Ann. When asked about her, one officer quipped that she meant more to the “army than the Madonna to the Catholics.” Benjamin Woodward, a Union surgeon, called her a “diamond in the rough.”

In February of 1862, she made numerous trips to the Union hospital transport vessel City of Memphis before joining General Grant’s troops prior to the Battle of Shiloh on April 6-7, 1862. There, she cared for the wounded and kept the hospital sanitized and organized. She earned the nickname “Cyclone in Calico” because of her penchant for ignoring regulations in order to get a job done properly. And from the wounded soldiers, she earned the nickname “Mother Bickerdyke,” because of her nurturing qualities. She loved each one of her “boys” and it wasn’t unusual for her to be found traipsing on the battlefield after dark making sure there were no living among the dead.

Mother Bickerdyke’s responsibilities were so varied and her hand in so many pots that one day a Union surgeon asked her, “Madam, you seem to combine yourself—diet kitchen and medical staff. May I inquire under whose authority you are working?” To which she casually responded, “I have received my authority from the Lord God Almighty; have you anything that ranks higher than that?” Another surgeon, who Mother Bickerdyke levied charges against at one point in time, petitioned General Sherman to drop the charges. Sherman politely informed the surgeon he couldn’t because “…she has more power than I. She outranks me.”

Only one rare occurrence caused Mother Bickerdyke to retreat to her home in the North, and that was only temporary. A surgeon brought her up on disobedience charges and although she was never incarcerated, the trial took its toll on her. After a brief period of seclusion, she found herself in Chattanooga at General Sherman’s camp where she exchanged strong words with him that caused him to reverse one of his orders that made it difficult for medical supplies to reach the Union hospitals in the South—his reversal clearly supporting his belief that she did outrank him.

Mother Bickerdyke went on to provide services at Vicksburg, Battle of Missionary, and throughout the state of Georgia as she followed on the heels of General Sherman’s troops. After the war, in 1867 she assumed the role of Assistant Superintendent of Chicago’s Home for the Friendless, a home for recovering soldiers, widows, and orphans. In 1870, she held a post with the Protestant Board of City Missions for the City of New York. In 1874, she returned to Great Bend, KS to be with her two sons for a spell before heading to San Francisco where she worked for the US Mint in a position that Senator John Logan, a wartime patron, helped secure for her. She also devoted time to the Salvation Army and was instrumental in securing pensions for veterans and Civil War nurses. In 1886, she was granted a $25 per month pension by Congress. She returned to Kansas where she remained until her death two years later on November 8, 1901 at the age of 84. She was buried with full military honors in the Linwood Cemetery in Galesburg, IL next to her husband. A monument in her honor stands on the lawn of the Courthouse of Knox County, IL, beneath it is engraved General Sherman’s one-time response, “She outranks me.”

Mother Bickerdyke once remarked, “I served in our Civil War from June 9, 1861 to March 20, 1865. I was in 19 hard-fought battles in the Departments of Ohio, Tennessee, and Cumberland Armies. I did the work of one, and tried to do it well.” The United States launched a ship, the SS Mary A Bickerdyke in 1943 at Richmond, CA.