My Story of the War

Mary Ashton Livermore was more than just a nurse for the Union Army.  She was an educator, a writer and suffragette. When named co-director of the Chicago branch of the United States Sanitary Commission, Livermore not only tended the wounded, she raised money and supplies for the Sanitary Commission and edited their monthly bulletins, using these to communicate with its four thousand Aid Societies. During her official travels, she gathered facts and personal stories of individual soldiers and sent these to her husband along with her official reports. He published both, with the “war sketches,” as she called them. Mrs. Livermore’s husband saved all her letters, bulletins, stories and articles.   She had a habit of destroying her papers once a job or task was completed because she didn’t want to carry it with her from place to place.  He kept every article, letter, story and memo from the Army pertaining to Mary and her work, in chronological order.  To this rich history,  she added her letters to and  from friends.  She  draws upon this complete and detailed record to write this story.