Falmouth Civil War Nurse Honored

Emily W. Dana was honored at a recent ceremony honoring women veterans at the Hall of Flags in Augusta. Her image was included as a representative of women who served during the Civil War on a plaque that was unveiled February 18, 2011. Emily was a teacher in Portland when the Civil War began. She joined a number of other women from the Portland area to volunteer to be nurses for the sick and wounded soldiers. She spent most of her career as a nurse at the Naval School Hospital in Annapolis. Near the end of the war she found herself caring for some of the saddest possible cases -- Union soldiers that had been taken prisoner and kept in Confederate prisons such as Libby and the even more notorius Andersonville Prison. Some of her patients were described as little more than moving skeletons.
Emily's family owned property in Falmouth, Maine, and she spent many summers there. Emily never married and inherited the family home on Waites Landing Road in Falmouth where she spent her final years. She died January 27, 1929 and is buried in the Evergreen Cemetery in Portland.