Juliet Opie Hopkins: Superintendent of Alabama's Hospitals in Virginia

From: Alabama Department of Archives and History

One-fourth of the one million Southern men who fought in the Confederate army died of wounds or disease. Inadequate doctors and medical services, and lack of medicines contributed to this number. Also, the Confederate government was slow in setting up a medical service, therefore states authorized hospitals to be set up close to the battlefields. Nursing as a profession had not developed in Alabama before the war, except in Mobile where Catholic sisters operated a hospital. Nevertheless, during the war women provided much of the care for the sick and wounded. "Southern women always nursed family, neighbors, and slaves but never strange men. The war changed this social standard, and hospitals staffed by 'respectable ladies' of the community were established all over the state. " (Rogers, Ward, Atkins, Flynt, 200) One of these "respectable ladies," Juliet Opie Hopkins of Mobile, served as Matron and Acting Superintendent of the hospitals from 1861-1864.

The Alabama Hospitals in Richmond, Virginia were established by an Act of the Alabama Legislature in November 1861. The legislature appropriated $30,000 to establish hospitals in Virginia to care for sick and wounded soldiers from Alabama, serving in the Army of the Potomac, later known as the Army of Northern Virginia. Subsequent legislation authorized the governor to establish a medical depot at Manasses Junction, Virginia, and to appoint "an efficient and skillful medical man" to oversee the receipt and distribution of food, clothing, medical supplies and money provided by the state, benevolent associations and private individuals for the benefit of wounded Alabama soldiers in Virginia. In December 1861, Governor John Gill Shorter appointed Judge Arthur Francis Hopkins to serve as Superintendent of Alabama Hospitals in Virginia. Because of his advanced age and poor health, Hopkins' wife, Juliet Opie Hopkins, served as the chief administrator of the three hospitals that were eventually established for Alabama troops in Richmond, Virginia. For several months prior to the official establishment of the hospitals, Juliet Hopkins had been collecting and distributing clothing and medical supplies and caring for wounded soldiers.

State funding for the hospitals was irregular and insufficient; Mrs. Hopkins was forced to rely on charitable donations from Ladies Aid Societies throughout Alabama and she donated nearly $500,000 of her own money for the maintenance of the hospitals. When the Alabama legislature ordered the hospitals closed and the property to be sold in December 1863, Mrs. Hopkins continued her exertions for several more months. She eventually returned to Alabama in 1864 and served as administrator of the military hospital at Camp Watts in Macon County. Her humanitarian efforts in behalf of Alabama soldiers were recognized by the Alabama legislature which authorized her picture to be printed on several denominations of state currency.

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Matrons

By Glenna R. Schroeder-Lein

In both the North and the South, women with the title "matron" worked in general hospitals behind the lines. However, the two sides varied in their concept of a matron's duties.

The position of matron was established i the Confederacy by legislation passed on November 25, 1862. Each hospital was to have two chief matrons to supervise the entire "domestic economy" of the hospital. There were also supposed to be two assistant matrons in charge of the laundry and patients' clothing, and two ward matrons for each ward of 100 patients, who made sure that  each patient received suitable bedding, food, and medicine.

In practice, the number of matrons depended upon the size of the hospital and the willingness of the doctor in charge to appoint them. Their duties also varied, involving many kinds of hands-on hospital work in addition to their supervisory roles. Matrons often cooked for patients with special diet needs, making toddies, eggnog, or recipes that some soldier's mother used to make, in order to appeal to delicate appetites. Matrons sometimes fed the concoctions to the patients as well. In many hospitals matrons controlled the key to the medicinal liquor supply, dispensing whiskey only by proper prescription, Matrons sometimes did the same tasks as nurses, such as washing the hands, faces and wounds of patients. In addition, matrons comforted patients, offered spiritual counsel, sat with the dying, and wrote to patients' families to inform them about the soldier's location or, if necessary, his demise.

Matrons worked long hours, in some cases from 4:00 a.m. until midnight. Many matrons became ill from exhaustion, as well as disease, and had to leave the hospital to recuperate. Among the most famous of the Confederate matrons wee Phoebe Pember, at Chimborazo Hospital No. 2 in Richmond, and Ella Newsom, Fannie Beers, and Kate Cumming, who worked at various locations with the Army of Tennessee. Pember, Beers, and Cumming later wrote books about their experiences.

Officially, as of 1863, one Union matron was to be appointed for every twenty beds to perform the duty in hospitals that laundresses performed in the field. However, the term "matron" was also used in other contexts to apply to women working as nurses, cooks, chambermaids, or ward supervisors, a position similar to what Confederates meant by the term. Jane Woolsey, for example, seems to have served as a matron in the supervisory sense.

The position of matron evidently was more important and prestigious for the Confederates. Although some people objected to matrons, as they did to the presence of women in hospitals in any capacity, patients generally seem to have benefited from matrons' care.

IMAGE: Jane Stuart Woolsey

From: "The Encyclopedia of Civil War Medicine"

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