Cornelia Hancock (1840 - 1927)

Born 8 Feb 1840 in Hancock's Bridge, Salem, New Jersey, United States

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 31 Dec 1927 at age 87 in Atlantic City, Atlantic, New Jersey, USA

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Biography

Cornelia Hancock was a New Jerseyan.

Cornelia was a Friend (Quaker)

Cornelia was a nurse at and gathered supplies for Gettysburg and Fredericksburg field hospitals from July 1863 through April 1865 - the end of the US Civil War.
Honored for eternity:
In Memoriam

Cornelia Hancock is Notable.

Cornelia Hancock was born on 8 February 1840 in Hancock's Bridge, Salem, New Jersey. She was the daughter of Thomas Yorke Hancock and Rachel L Nicholson.^{[1] [2]}

Cornelia was a 10-year-old schoolgirl living with her family at the 1850 Census:^[3]

Cornelia was a Quaker and when her only brother went to the fight for the Union in the War Between the States, she asked her sister's husband, Dr. Henry T. Child, to advise her how she could help in the war effort. He sent a carriage for her on July 5th, 1863, and Cornelia left for Philadelphia.^[4] Cornelia joined a number of others as volunteer nurses. She was rejected by Dorothea Dix as being too young, but boarded the train and refused to leave her seat.

Cornelia wrote frequent letters to her mother, sister, brother, nieces and nephews during her two years as a nurse. In the letters from October 1864 through the following April she wrote of her fondness for Dr Frederick Augustus Dudley and he for her and her concern as he was a POW at that time. They never married and Cornelia remained active in social work and in urban development almost until her death.^[5]

Cornelia died from nephritis on 31 December 1927 in Atlantic City, Atlantic, New Jersey, USA. She is interred in the Cedar Hills Friends Cemetery, Harmersville, Salem County, New Jersey. ^[1]

Obituary

Civil War Nurse, Author. Of all the women arriving in Philadelphia on July 5, 1863, as volunteer nurses for Gettysburg, she was the only one rejected by Dorothea Dix. She was 23 at the time. Undaunted, the young Quakeress sat down on the train scheduled to carry the women west and remained in her seat until it pulled into the station at Gettysburg the following day. Immediately she went to work with a dedication and efficiency that won respect from the doctors and affection and a silver medal of appreciation from admiring patients.

A compassionate woman of boundless drive, she stayed with the army, usually as a paid nurse, until May 13, 1865. Her brief term in the Contraband Hospital in Washington D.C., discouraged her because blacks received such degrading treatment. She preferred working in field hospitals and there her reputation thrived as an organizer and as a source of desperately needed supplies that she was able to get from civilians.

With severe fighting to the south in mid-1864, her services were requested at the II Corps Hospital at Brandy Station, Virginia. She was the first woman to arrive at Belle Point, where she tended wounded from the Wilderness, then served at Fredericksburg, Port Royal, White House Landing, City Point, and Petersburg. She often wrote letters home richly describing hospital life. She subjected her peers to blunt criticism or approval as she judged their usefulness, but her soldiers received only praise for their endurance under extreme suffering. The task she hated the most was writing to the family of a dying man. She regarded General Ulysses Grant a mere instrument of war; coming to this opinion after the Wilderness. On April 9, 1865, she visited Richmond, and a few days later she joined in the surrender celebrations at Grant's headquarters. Before going home, she stopped in Washington D.C. to see her boys in the Grand Review of the Armies.

Her stint in the Contraband Hospital convinced her of the need to labor among freed slaves. Sponsored by the Society of Friends, she opened the Laing School for Negroes in Pleasantville, South Carolina. After teaching for a decade she moved to Philadelphia. She helped found the Society for Organizing Charity in 1878 and the Children's Aid Society and Bureau of Information 4 years later. She never married, remaining active in social work and in urban development almost until her death, in Philadelphia. Her letters, written from July 7, 1863 to May 13, 1865, were first published in 1937 under the title "South After Gettysburg." It became a bestseller. Her letters provide a valuable description of the tragic aftermath of battle and a frontline nurse's attempt to cope with suffering. Bio by: Ugaalltheway

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Find a Grave, database and images (www.findagrave.com/memorial/10673610/cornelia-hancock : accessed 17 June 2021), memorial page for Cornelia Hancock (8 Feb 1839–31 Dec 1927), Find A Grave: Memorial #10673610, citing Cedar Hills Friends Cemetery, Harmersville, Salem County, New Jersey, USA ; Maintained by Find A Grave .
2. ↑ "United States Census, 1850," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M6M5-3Y7 : 23 December 2020), Cornelia Hancock in household of Thomas Y Hancock, Lower Alloways Creek Township, Salem, New Jersey, United States; citing family , NARA microfilm publication (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).
3. ↑ "United States Census, 1850," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M6M5-3Y7 : 23 December 2020), Cornelia Hancock in household of Thomas Y Hancock, Lower Alloways Creek Township, Salem, New Jersey, United States; citing family , NARA microfilm publication (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).
4. ↑ Jaquette, Henrietta Stratton, South After Gettysburg, Letters of Cornelia Hancock from the Army of the Potomac, 1863-1865, page 13-14.
5. ↑ South After Gettysburg

See also:

• Wikipedia: Cornelia Hancock
• Wikidata: Item Q5171166, en:Wikipedia