Katherine Prescott Wormeley

Katherine Prescott Wormeley (1830 to 1908) was a nurse in the American Civil War who later became a well known author, editor and translator. Born in Ipswich, England, the daughter of a naval officer, she emigrated to the United States while young. In the war she worked with the United States Sanitary Commission, the civilian body that coordinated volunteer relief for the Union Army alongside figures such as Frederick Law Olmsted and Henry Bellows. She served as a nurse with the Commission and afterwards as head nurse at the Army hospital at Portsmouth Grove near Newport, Rhode Island, and she wrote about the Commission's work in print, including letters from its headquarters during the Peninsular Campaign of 1862. After the war she became one of the best known translators of her time, rendering the complete works of Balzac into English. She died at her summer home in Jackson, New Hampshire, and is buried in Newport.