Nightingale's Nuns and the Crimean War

Book excerpt: Infectious disease, wounded and dying soldiers, and a shortage of supplies were the daily realities faced by the nuns who nursed with Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War. This study documents their involvement in the conflict and how the nuns bore witness to the effects of carnage and official indifference, in many cases traumatized as a result. This book reflects on the initiative and courage shown by the nuns and how their actions can be viewed as part of a wider movement among women in the mid-19th century to find fulfilment and assert control in their own lives. Nightingale's Nuns and the Crimean War also sheds light on how critics at the time accused many of the nuns of being secret agents of the Catholic Church who preyed on vulnerable soldier patients; there was a campaign in parliament to regulate and control convents. Terry Tastard shows how the nuns attempted to neutralize this anti-Catholicism, as well as charting the participation of Anglican nuns who had just begun an astonishing project to revive the religious life in the Church of England. Finally the book reveals new insights into Florence Nightingale's relationships with the nuns who nursed with her in Crimea and how these experiences impacted Nightingale's own perspective.