Wisconsin Angel, Cordelia A. P. Harvey, transformed herself from a former teacher and grieving Governor’s widow, into a dedicated Army nurse, Sanitary Commission lobbyist and orphan’s advocate. Cordelia witnessed first hand, the horrors, carnage, deprivations and heartbreak, of the American Civil War and will always be honored and remembered as a Perseverant Patriot.
Cordelia A. Perrine was born December 7, 1824 in Barre, New York. The family moved to Wisconsin in 1842 and owned a prosperous farm in the Kenosha, area. Cordelia taught school in that city when she met and married Louis Harvey, who was also a teacher. In 1845, they moved to Clinton Junction where Louis operated a country store. They then moved their home to Rock County, where they remained until 1859, when Louis was elected Secretary of State.
In 1861, the people of Wisconsin elected Louis as their governor. From Fort Sumter on, both he and Cordelia had a deep interest in the Civil War. A company of volunteers were named the “Harvey Zouaves.” In the busy days which followed the first call for troops, Mrs. Harvey entered with enthusiasm into the work for soldiers and their families.
When the casualty reports were released after the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee in April 1862, Governor Harvey called on the citizens of Wisconsin to donate medical supplies. The state responded, and the governor personally delivered the supplies and some volunteer surgeons to the field hospitals near the battlefield. He also visited Wisconsin regiments at their camps. But on April 19th, while transferring between steamboats on the Tennessee River, Louis Harvey slipped and fell into the river and drowned.
Cordelia was not a woman to spend her life in mourning, however, and when the intensity of her grief had somewhat lessened, she began to ask herself what her duties in life were to be. A settled conviction possessed her that her duty in life was to finish the work which her husband had left undone. She soon began to inquire where and how she could be most helpful to Wisconsin soldiers. In late 1862, Wisconsin Governor Salomon appointed her Sanitary Agent at St. Louis, and for four years she rendered exceptional service for Wisconsin soldiers. Her tact was unusual, therefore she succeeded in accomplishing things which other people failed. Her motherly heart and sympathetic figure caused the men to call her the Wisconsin Angel.
Cordelia Harvey was always modest and often said that every patriotic woman in Wisconsin deserved as much praise as she. In short, she was an extremely human, lovable person, of the highest type of womanhood, unselfish, unconsciously great, and Wisconsin can forever be proud of having the honor to claim her as its daughter. At St. Louis Harvey found the medical department poorly organized, and hampered by many incompetent surgeons. Although she realized the delicacy of the situation she was firm in her opinion that conditions must be radically changed, even if the sacred red-tape of government rules had to be cut. She began by visiting hospitals, in order that she might find out where improvements were most needed.
Cordelia Harvey realized that she needed more than just Wisconsin’s support in order to provide the medical assistance for the sick and wounded troops, Federal aid was required and that meant that President Lincoln’s direct intervention was mandatory. After many letters and petitions, an interview with the Chief Executive was scheduled and as a result of Mrs. Harvey’s intercession with President Lincoln, three convalescent camps or hospitals were established in Wisconsin, at Madison, Milwaukee, and at Prairie du Chien. The Harvey United States Army General Hospital,was established at Madison in October, 1863.
During the last two years of the war. Mrs. Harvey had been considering the establishment of a home in Wisconsin for the orphans of soldiers. When she returned from the South in 1865, she brought with her six or seven orphans of the war, whom she had found there, not inquiring on which side their fathers fought. Having learned that the Government was about to discontinue the several hospitals in the Northern states, she thought the Harvey Hospital so well adapted for an orphanage, that negotiations were at once began with the owners of the property.
Mrs. Harvey served as the superintendent Soldiers Orphans Home from 1866-1874. In 1876, Cordelia Harvey married Reverend Albert T. Chester and moved with him to Buffalo, New York, where she taught school until his death. She then returned to Wisconsin and died on February 27, 1895, in Clinton. Both she and her husband, Louis P. Harvey, are buried at Forest Hill Cemetery in Madison, Wisconsin.
Wisconsin Angel, Cordelia A. P. Harvey, was not only a Perseverant Patriot, but was just the type of woman that knew what her sick and wounded soldiers required and was also tenacious enough to demand the attention of the President of the United States in order to satisfy her humanitarian demands.
Bummer
