{{Short description|American Civil War nurse}} {{Use American English|date=March 2026}} {{Use mdy dates|date=March 2026}} {{Infobox person | name = Cornelia Hancock | image = Cornelia Hancock civil war nurse.jpg | image_size = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth date|1840|2|8|df=y}} | birth_place = Hancock's Bridge, New Jersey, US | death_date = {{death date and age |1927|12|31|1840|2|8 |df=y}} | death_place = Atlantic City, New Jersey, US | citizenship = | education = | occupation = Nurse | years_active = 1863–1865 | known_for = Civil War nursing work | module2 = | resting_place = Cedar Hills Friends Cemetery in Harmersville, New Jersey<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20141011220606/http://www.nps.gov/resources/person.htm?id=152 National Park Service]</ref> }} '''Cornelia Hancock''' (February 8, 1840 – December 31, 1927)<ref name=Jaquette /> was a celebrated volunteer nurse, serving the injured and infirmed of the Union Army during the American Civil War. Hancock's service lasted from July 6, 1863, to May 23, 1865.<ref name=Logan />
==Early life== Hancock was born in the Hancock's Bridge section of Lower Alloways Creek Township, New Jersey, to Quakers of old colonial ancestry. The youngest of four children, Hancock was educated "in the Salem (county) academies."<ref name=Jaquette /> Her sister Ellen worked at the United States Mint in Philadelphia.<ref name=Jaquette /> Her only brother and her cousins joined the Union Army in 1862.<ref name=Jaquette />
==Civil War service== Hancock's chance to serve came when her brother-in-law (Ellen's husband) Henry T. Child, a volunteer surgeon, offered to take her to the Gettysburg battlefield in July 1863.<ref name=Jaquette />
However, Dorothea Dix, the superintendent of Union Army nurses, personally refused to enroll Hancock because she did not meet her requirements that the military's female nurses be "mature in years (at least 30), plain almost to homeliness in dress, and by no means liberally endowed with personal attractions.”<ref name=Leonard /> In other words: at only 23, Hancock was too young and attractive to be an army nurse. Hancock was the only female nursing volunteer to be rejected.<ref name=nps />
Hancock went to Gettysburg anyway. "I got into Gettysburg the night of July sixth – where the need was so great that there was no further cavil about age,” she wrote in her journal.<ref name=Leonard /> In a letter to her sister dated July 8, 1863, Hancock wrote, "We have been two days on the field; go about eight and come in about six—go in ambulances of army buggies...I feel assured I shall never feel horrifed at anything that may happen to me here-after."<ref name="Tsui 2006 114">{{Cite book|last=Tsui|first=Bonnie|title=She Went to the Field: Women Soldiers of the Civil War|location=Guilford|publisher=TwoDot|date=2006|isbn=978-0-7627-4384-1|page=114}}</ref> Hancock responded to an immense need: the Union lacked supplies as well as staff.<ref name="Tsui 2006 114"/>
She had no formal training as a nurse; but after three weeks, she was tending to eight tenths of wounded. In October she tended to the large numbers of hungry and injured escaped slaves who were arriving in Washington, D.C.<ref name=Jaquette /> On February 10, 1864, Hancock joined the II Corps and served with them at the II Corps Hospital near Brandy Station, Virginia,<ref name=":0" /> at the Battle of the Wilderness<ref name=Jaquette /> and the Siege of Petersburg. She worked in the II Corps hospital at the Depot Field Hospital in City Point.<ref name=nps />
==Post-War== After the war, she opened a school for African Americans in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. In Philadelphia, she founded several charity organizations. She was a board member of the Children's Aid Society 1883 to 1895 and helped children orphaned after the Johnstown Flood.<ref name=Jaquette /> She also served as president of the National Association of Army Nurses of the Civil War.<ref name=Logan />
In 1914, Hancock retired to Atlantic City, New Jersey, to live with her niece. She died of nephritis in 1927, aged 87, and her ashes were buried at Cedar Hills Friends Cemetery in the Harmersville section of Lower Alloways Creek Township, New Jersey.<ref name=Jaquette />
==Legacy== Her popular collection of wartime letters is no longer in print.<ref name=":0">''Letters of a Civil War Nurse: Cornelia Hancock, 1863–1865'' - Cornelia Hancock, Henrietta Stratton Jaquette {{ISBN|0-8032-7312-6}} [https://www.amazon.com/Letters-Civil-War-Nurse-1863-1865/dp/0803273126]</ref>
A commemorative flagstone was placed in her honor at the Lower Alloways Creek Friends Meeting House.<ref name=Jaquette />
==References== <references>
<ref name=Leonard>{{cite news|url=http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/nursing-the-wounded-at-gettysburg/ |title=Nursing the Wounded at Gettysburg|last1=Leonard|first1=Pat|date=7 July 2013}}</ref> <ref name=Logan>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/parttakenbywome00logagoog|quote=dix dame army nurses association.|title=The Part Taken by Women in American History|pages=[https://archive.org/details/parttakenbywome00logagoog/page/n397 358]-359|last1=Logan|first1=Mrs. John A|date=1912|publisher=Perry-Nalle publishing Company}}</ref> <ref name=Jaquette>{{cite book|title=Notable American women: 1607–1950|publisher=Harvard University Press|url=https://search.credoreference.com.revproxy.brown.edu/content/entry/hupnawi/hancock_cornelia_feb_8_1840_dec_31_1927/0|last1=Janquette|first1=H.|date=1971}}</ref> <ref name=nps>{{cite web|url=https://www.nps.gov/pete/learn/historyculture/cornelia-hancocok.htm|title=Cornelia Hancock|website=National Park Service}}</ref>
</references>
==External links== *[http://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/clementsmss/umich-wcl-M-358han?view=text Finding Aid for Hancock's Papers] at the William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan. *[https://www.nps.gov/people/cornelia-hancock.htm National Park Service biography: Cornelia Hancock]. Accessed February 25, 2024. *The [https://archives.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/repositories/7/resources/8769 Cornelia Hancock Correspondence] held at [https://www.swarthmore.edu/friends-historical-library Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hancock, Cornelia}} Category:1840 births Category:1926 deaths Category:Nurses from New Jersey Category:People from Atlantic City, New Jersey Category:People from Lower Alloways Creek Township, New Jersey Category:People of New Jersey in the American Civil War Category:Women wartime nurses Category:Deaths from kidney disease Category:American Civil War nurses Category:American women nurses Category:National Association of Army Nurses of the Civil War