Adelaide Elizabeth Thompson Spurgeon (born about 1826 – died March 4, 1907) was a nurse during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by state ...

, and a philanthropist in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

Early life

Adelaide Elizabeth Thompson was born in England about 1826. She lived in New York before moving to Washington, D.C. in 1861.Mary A. Gardner Holland
''Our army nurses. Interesting sketches, addresses, and photographs of nearly one hundred of the noble women who served in hospitals and on battlefields during our civil war''
(B. Wilkins 1895): 454-465; via Internet Archive

Career

In May 1861, began volunteering as a nurse and cook at a

smallpox Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) ce ...

hospital in Washington, D.C. She collected donations for the hospital from New York friends. When she became ill herself, she had to resign from the hospital, but she continued as a "secret service" agent at the provost general's headquarters. She told of interviewing two young women who enlisted in disguise, "They both wept bitterly, not only at the disgrace f being discovered but at being obliged to return to their homes, leaving their loved ones, perhaps never to see them again." She later petitioned Congress for compensation for her wartime service, and was granted a pension in 1890, when the Senate committee found her to be "very clearly ... a meritorious case". Later in life, Spurgeon took an interest in the lives in children in Washington, D.C., and the work of the city's Church of the Epiphany. She sponsored about 150 baptisms at the church in the 1880s. In the 1880s and 1890s, she served as a missionary at the city's

Freedmen's Hospital Howard University Hospital, previously known as Freedmen's Hospital, is a major hospital located in Washington, D.C., built on the site of the previous Griffith Stadium. The hospital has served the African-American community in the area for over ...

, helping patients find homes after discharge.

Personal life

Adelaide Thompson married a soldier from New York, Thaddeus C. Spurgeon, in 1863. They had a daughter, Ella Virginia Spurgeon (later Neely). Spurgeon was widowed when her husband died in 1897, and she died in 1907, in Washington. Her grave is in Arlington National Cemetery, with the inscription "Adelaide E. Spurgeon, Army Nurse". Her death was one of seven marked in August 1907 at the annual convention of the Army Nurses of the Civil War.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Spurgeon, Adelaide Thompson 1907 deaths American nurses People from Washington, D.C. Burials at Arlington National Cemetery Year of birth uncertain