Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of Civil War Hospital Sketches

Civil War Hospital Sketches
hardtack avatar reviewed on + 2572 more book reviews


This is a short, simple book written as six letters home by the woman who would later write that famous novel, "Little Women." It tells of her short service in a Union hospital, where she cared for wounded soldiers, before having to leave due to her own illness.

The letters were then published by her family in a local newspaper. They touched the hearts of so many people that they were soon combined in this little book and sold during that terrible war.

I have read so many books about war, about wounded soldiers, those who died and the suffering they all endured. But never have I read a book that so captured the essential hope and hopelessness of the wounded and dying and those who administered to them.

Like "The Red Badge of Courage," this book transcends the war it was written about and becomes a book about all wars.