Harvey received the appointment and went
to work in
Union hospitals along the Mississippi
River,
performing her duties
with such zeal and devotion that her
patients
dubbed her the "Wisconsin
Angel".
While working with
wounded and sick Wisconsin soldiers in
the hot
southern climate, Harvey was appalled
that the army,
out of fear that
soldiers might desert, forbade the men
from
returning to cooler, more healthful
Northern
hospitals to recover. Then,
when Harvey contracted one of the camp
fevers
herself and recuperated quickly back in
Wisconsin,
she became determined
that the soldiers have the same chance
for
recovery. Harvey had told President
Lincoln that the
policy of keeping
wounded and sick soldiers in hospitals
at the front
was equivalent to a death sentence for
many
patriotic men. "dead
men cannot fight, and they may not
desert," she
told him. Neither President Lincoln or
Secretary of
War Stanton wanted
to buck the established military
system, but
Harvey's logic and persistence finally
won them
over, and hospitals in the
North were authorized and constructed.
Four months after the death of her
husband,
Governor of Wisconsin Louis P. Harvey, a
friend
wrote to the new
governor about appointing Louis
Harvey's widow,
Cordelia, to the Sanitary Commission.