WISCONSIN AND THE CIVIL WAR


Northern hospitals. He also agreed that medical inspectors should
be named for every army corps and that medical inspectors should
have full power to discharge disabled men or send convalescents
to Northern hospitals.
  Mrs. Harvey wanted several military hospitals to be established
in Wisconsin and she took steps to achieve that end. She had an
interview  with President Lincoln and presented her plan of
hospitals in the soldiers' home states. Lincoln sent her on to the
War Department to see Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. On
an envelope addressed to Secretary Stanton, Lincoln wrote a brief
note: "Admit Mrs. Harvey at once; listen to what she says; she
is a lady of intelligence and talks sense." Stanton listened to the
woman from Wisconsin, but he was in no mood to have a woman
tell him how to revamp the hospital system. He saw a way out.
He told Mrs. Harvey that he had just sent the U.S. Surgeon
General to New Orleans on a hospital inspection tour. Before he
took action on her suggestions he would await the report of the
Surgeon General. Mrs. Harvey was sure that Stanton was just
finding an excuse to leave things as they were. The next day,
therefore, Mrs. Harvey returned to President Lincoln's office and
stubbornly and firmly restated her case. She would not leave
until the President took action on her plea. Her persistence paid
dividends and  President Lincoln  acquiesced.  Subsequently, 3
hospitals or convalescent camps were established in Wisconsin.
The Harvey United States Army General Hospital (named after
the deceased Governor, not Mrs. Harvey) was established in
Madison in October, 1863. The second was established in Mil-
waukee the next year as an officer's hospital. The third was
named the Swift Hospital and was located in Prairie du Chien.
   After the war, Mrs. Harvey returned to Wisconsin and Madison.
 She heard reports that the War Department planned to close down
 and discontinue the Madison and Prairie du Chien hospitals. She
 talked of transforming the Harvey Hospital into a home for
 orphans of Wisconsin soldiers. She enlisted support for that
 proposal. Then she organized a charitable association which
 acquired title to the empty Harvey United States Army General
 Hospital buildings and by January 1, 1866 the orphanage was
 ready for occupancy. Several months later the State of Wiscon-
 sin took over control of the orphans' home. The Wisconsin
 Soldiers' Orphans' Home functioned as a living monument to the
 energy and interests of Mrs. Cordelia Harvey.
    Thousands of women, in addition to Mrs. Harvey, made con-
 tributions to winning the war. In families where the bread-
 winners shouldered muskets and marched off to war, the women-
 folks took on added responsibilities. Some fields of activity,
 hitherto closed to women, were opened by the exigencies of the
 war.
    In a way, the doors of the University of Wisconsin were opened


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