Mary Phinney von Olnhausen, a Massachusetts native, was a Union nurse during the Civil War who served at the Mansion House Hospital in Alexandria in 1862, the setting of the PBS series "
Mercy Street." She was one of the show's principal characters, played by actor Mary Elizabeth Winstead. After duty in Alexandria, Phinney sailed south in late 1863 to work at the Mansfield Hospital in Morehead City, North Carolina, where she remained until the war's end. Phinney's reminiscences, diaries, and correspondence chronicling her experiences appeared in a 1908 book titled
Adventures of an Army Nurse in Two Wars.
Phinney's
clear descriptions and unvarnished opinions open a distinctive window into the events of the time,
providing views not found in military reports and correspondence. I found her writing particularly valuable for my book,
The Fight for the Old North State (Univ. Press of Kansas, 2019) - especially her impressions of the Confederate offensive against New Bern led by George Pickett in early February 1864.
In commenting on the Union loss at Newport Barracks south of New Bern on February 2, she pointed to the quality of troops defending the position, particularly members of the
9th Vermont. She believed
the
Vermonters’ lack of grit and experience had doomed the position. “Had I
really believed the Ninth and Cavalry made a good stand and had really
lost many men,” she wrote, “I might have felt different; but as they
once passed six months in Chicago as paroled prisoners, and Harper’s
Ferry was all the fight they ever were in, I believed they would
skedaddle ingloriously, as I believe they did.”
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| Morehead City early in the war (Frank Leslie's Illustrated) |
In the days following the fall of Newport Barracks, concern rose that the rebels would descend on Morehead City. The garrison was on edge. “A scurrying time you never saw,” wrote Phinney. Men
rapidly loaded the regimental and company stores onto boats and others, including civilians, rushed to the town's defenses. Everything “seemed
to be thought of except the patients,” she observed. In addition, anxious black refugees streamed in from the countryside
fearing re-enslavement should the Confederates seize control of the region. According the Phinney, a firm abolitionist, "they came by hundreds, such frightened beings, leaving everything except their children behind them.”
After packing her own bags, she ventured out to the defenses. By her estimate, three hundred men gathered to repulse the expected
attack behind hastily constructed trenches. The attack never occurred though and Phinney would remain at Morehead City, eventually witnessing Sherman's advance into North Carolina the next year.
