First published 1863
In the winter of 1862, young Louisa May Alcott leaves her comfortable Boston home to serve as a nurse in Washington, D.C.'s overcrowded army hospitals. Overwhelmed by the sheer scale of suffering, Alcott tends to the wounded and dying with grit and compassion, her keen eye sparing no gruesome detail. As she navigates the challenges of a war-torn city, Alcott's dispatches offer a visceral, unsentimental glimpse into the human cost of conflict. Through Alcott's clear-eyed, empathetic lens, "Hospital Sketches" lays bare the true price of war.
Genres: american-civil-war, american-fiction, historical-fiction, biography-memoir, 19th-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: based-on-true-story, fish-out-of-water
Setting: Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), United States, Washington (D.C.), New York
Period: 19th century, Civil War, 1861-1865, 1862-1863, 1861-1865
68 pages · Paperback
Content warnings: medical-trauma, war