My Story of the War: A Woman's Narrative of Four Years Personal Experience as Nurse in the Union Army, and in Relief Work at Home, in HospiProvides a testament to the enormous and wide ranging contributions made by Union women and suggests how these women began to undermine traditional conceptions of womanhood. Nina Silber When secessionist chaos turned to bloodshed in 1861, Mary A. Livermore (1820 1905), editor, lecturer, and abolitionist, left her family and volunteered for the U. S. Sanitary Commission, becoming one of a handful of women to achieve national prominence and a position