Kate Cumming

Cumming began her service at the Mississippi/Tennessee border at the Battle of Shiloh.^[2] The Confederacy did not have an organized medical force at the war's inception, making the efforts of nurses like Cumming crucial for Confederate survival.^[1] As the medical department became more organized, Cumming occupied a matron position, and traveled with the mobile hospitals of Dr. Samuel Stout.^[1] Cumming was an active nurse throughout the war, which was unusual as nurses usually served temporarily.^[2] Cumming eventually became the head of food and housekeeping departments in multiple hospitals in Georgia.^[6]

"I could fill whole people with descriptions of the scenes I had," wrote Cumming of her battlefield experience.^[5] It is clear in her writings that Cumming knew nurses to be vital to the war effort.^[5] Cumming maintained a diary throughout her wartime experience, offering readers insight into life of a woman nurse in the war effort.^[1] Cumming's diary was published in 1866 under the title A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee.^[6]

At the end of the war, Cumming returned home to Mobile. She published her wartime experiences in 1866, titled A Journal of Hospital Life in the Confederate Army of Tennessee from the Battle of Shiloh to the End of the War.^[2] This journal has become one of the few primary sources regarding the work of Confederate nurses.^[7] In 1874, she moved to Birmingham, Alabama, with her father, where she worked with a teacher and was an active member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.^[2] She died in Birmingham on June 5, 1909. She is buried in Georgia.^[2]