Mary Ashton Livermore, author of My Story of the War, 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. She draws upon this detailed record to write this story.