Sally Louisa Tompkins was a Civil War Confederate Nurse and Army Officer. During the war years, Tompkins ran a small hospital in the home of Judge John Robertson on Main and Third streets in Richmond. Robertson Hospital could care for only a limited number of patients, and as a result, the sick and wounded were able to receive more personal attention than they might have received elsewhere.
Background
Sally Tompkins was born on November 9, 1833, at Poplar Grove in the Tidewater Region of Virginia's Middle Peninsula. She was the youngest of Colonel Christopher Tompkins' eight children. Colonel Tompkins eventually became a very wealthy merchant, doing business in Mathews County, Norfolk, and Richmond, Virginia. On August 16, 1838, Colonel Tompkins died, leaving behind his second wife Maria Patterson Tompkins and their surviving children. Sally was almost five years old at the time.
Sally's older sister, Elizabeth, had been active in restoring the local Christ Church, an Episcopal church that had fallen into disrepair. Elizabeth and Sally were very close to each other. Sally was devastated when three of her sisters (Martha, Harriet, and Elizabeth) died only a few weeks apart due to a local epidemic in 1842. Despite a difficult childhood, Sally found a means of helping others through nursing the sick in the local community free or slave.
Sally's early years are difficult to piece together since many records have not survived. What is known is that Sally, her mother, and her surviving sister, Maria, left Poplar Grove and lived in Norfolk from 1849-1852. In January 1854, Sally, her mother, and Maria moved to Richmond, Virginia. Sally's mother died a few months later.
Education
While in Norfolk, Sally and her sister studied at the Norfolk Female Institute.
Career
When the Confederate government appealed to the people of Richmond after the first battle of Manassas (Bull Run) in July 1861 to open their homes to the wounded, Sally Tompkins obtained the use of Judge John Robertson's residence, fitted it up at her own expense, and maintained it as a hospital until June 13, 1865.
The institution found many willing helpers, but to the young woman who flitted from bed to bed, medicine chest strapped to her side and Bible in hand, fell the responsibility of directing the hospital routine and procuring the necessary drugs and food.
The building was none too large or well adapted to hospital purposes, and often there were few medicines save whiskey and turpentine to supplement cleanliness and careful nursing, but the register shows 1, 333 admissions between August 1, 1861, and April 2, 1865, with only seventy-three deaths - despite the fact that the authorities, having early noted that her hospital returned a larger number of patients than any other, sent her many of the most desperate cases.
When an executive order placed all hospitals under government control, rather than lose the efficient chief of the Robertson Hospital and in recognition of her invaluable work, President Jefferson Davis had her commissioned a captain in the Confederate service, September 9, 1861. She returned her pay to the government but retained the rank that she might issue orders and draw supplies to augment her own liberality in behalf of the sick and wounded soldiers.
To the end of her long life, she was known as "Captain Sally."
Tompkins entered old age virtually penniless, however. She had spent most of her inheritance in the maintenance of her hospital and on several other philanthropies, and - according to one source - financial reverses took the rest. She was invited to enter the Richmond Home for Confederate Women, where she resided as both matriarchs and honored lifetime guest.
Achievements
Captain Sally Louisa Tompkins was the only woman to be commissioned into the Confederate Army. She is known for privately sponsoring a hospital in Richmond, Virginia to treat soldiers wounded in the American Civil War. Tompkins operated the hospital at her own expense, only closing the doors after the last patients were discharged in June 1865. Robertson Hospital treated over 1,300 patients, of whom only 73 died. No other hospital saved more of its patients, and officers tried to place their most seriously wounded soldiers with Tompkins.
Four United Daughters of the Confederacy chapters have been named in Sally Tompkins’ honor, and there is a memorial to her in the Mathews Court House Square. At St. James Episcopal Church in Richmond, to which she dedicated so much of her time and resources, a stained-glass window features a full-size portrait of her holding a Bible and dressed in black, standing before an angel with arms extended protectively.
Religion
Sally volunteered to teach Sunday school at the St. James Episcopal Church and remained an active member there for most of her life.
Membership
Tompkins was an honorary member of Confederate Veterans R.E. Lee Camp.
Personality
It was said that "her strength of mind and character took the place of more frivolous charms." Captain Sally Tompkins demonstrated that women were capable of doing so many things that, in this time period, women were thought incapable of doing. As a hospital administrator, she challenged gender expectations and helped to expand the role of women in all management positions.
Physical Characteristics:
Sally was the demure, diminutive, and frail young woman who flitted from bed to bed, medicine chest strapped to her side and Bible in hand. Lacking beauty, she was of dignified and forceful presence, and it was an earnest of her strength of personality and character.
Quotes from others about the person
"The men under Miss Sally's kind care looked so clean and comfortable - cheerful, one might say." - Mary Boykin Chesnut.
Connections
Love-struck patients often asked for Sally's hand in marriage, but she always refused, commenting, "Poor fellows, they are not yet well of their fevers."
