Civil War Oddities #89

Harriet W. E. Hawley, wife of a Connecticut lawyer, became a nurse when her husband donned a blue uniform, and the Hawley’s managed to stay together. Harriet spent most of her days and many of her nights among the sick of the Seventh Connecticut Regiment, led by her husband.

When Hawley was sent to his native state, North Carolina, his wife found a place in the hospital at Beaufort. After following her husband to Florida and South Carolina, she went with him to Washington when his command was assigned to the Army of the James in April 1864. Soon back in North Carolina, where her husband was now in command as Wilmington, the Connecticut woman may have been the only wife of a brigadier general to spend weeks nursing former inmates of Andersonville Prison.