UPDATE 2021: re-edited and additional annotations. Long before the end of the American Civil War, Sophronia Bucklin had seen it all: sickness, shattered bodies, amputations, death, and torrents of blood. In this 1869 book, she spares the reader no detail while humanizing what would otherwise be just statistics of casualties. She and her sister nurses cared for Union and Confederate, black and white, dressed their wounds and held their hands as they died. But she also has stories of hope and happy endings. Like her comrades, they didn't always play by the rules but did what they thought best for the soldiers. She volunteered for service at Gettysburg. She heard the cannons up close and had shrapnel and minnie balls rip through the canvas of her hospital tent.