Much has been written about the Union Sanitary and Christian Commissions during the American Civil War. Less has been written about the women who served the southern soldiers in their appallingly inadequate hospitals. One of those women was Mrs. Ella K. Newsom and this is her story. Compared by journalist Fraise Richard to the much more famous Florence Nightingale, Mrs. Newsom was a tireless worker for the relief of all who came in her care, Confederate or Union.