Hospital Sketches from the Civil War: Louisa Alcott

A good fit of illness proves the value of health; real danger tries one`s mettle; and self-sacrifice sweetens character.

Through a series of letters sent home while serving as a volunteer nurse for the Union Army, Louisa May Alcott created a raw and honest story of battlefield medicine during the American Civil War. Featuring a series of compassionate portraits of the soldiers she encountered, Hospital Sketches both recounted the desperate struggles of hospital life during wartime and gave a personal narrative of women`s growing role in medicine and the military.

The letters brought Alcott immediate recognition and began an astonishingly successful literary career that culminated in the publication of Little Women.