Sally Louisa Tompkins Sally Louisa Tompkins ( November 9 , 1833 – July 26 , 1916 ) was a humanitarian , nurse , and philanthropist . She is best - remembered for privately sponsoring a hospital in Richmond , Virginia to treat soldiers wounded in the American Civil War . Under her supervision , although little was known about the cause of infections , her insistence on cleanliness is said to have been a major key to the lowemortality rate of any such military hospital , Union Confederate , during the Civil War . Whatever her devotion and work earned the label " Angel of the Confederacy " . Youth , family . Sally Tompkins was born at Poplar Grove to Colonel Christopher Tompkins , an American Revolutionary War veteran , and Maria Patterson Tompkins in Mathews County , Virginia , in the Tidewater Region of Virginia ' s Middle Peninsula . She had been active in restoring her local Episcopal Church , an older structure , as a youth . Sally had a natural talent for nursing and could often be found tending the sick , both free and slave , on nearby plantations . When her husband died , she and her mother moved to Richmond , Virginia . American Civil War : Angel of the Confederacy . Richmond capital city of the Confederacy after Virginia became one of the last of the Confederate states to secede from the Union in April , 1861 . It was generally thought by both North and South alike that the armed conflict which was growing The First Battle of Bull Run , also known as the First Battle of Manassas on July 21 , 1861 , was a southern tactical victory which opened the Civil War in the first major hand - to - hand combat . Despite the word of victory , the Confederate capital city was ill - prepared for the hundreds of wounded soldiers who subsequently poured in , many arriving via the Virginia Central Railroad . The shock brought the reality of the horrors of warfare directly home even as officials and citizens scrambled to take care of the deluge . Only 28 years old , Tompkins was among the civilians who responded by opening the home of Judge John Robertson as a hospital . After the initial crisis had passed , Confederate President Jefferson Davis instituted regulations requiring military hospitals be under military command . However , The Robertson Hospital had done such an outstanding job and was prepared to continue that he commissioned Tompkins as a captain so that she could continue her work . She was the only woman officially commissioned as an officer in the Confederate States Army . She refused any payment for her services . On her military commission , dated 9 September 1861 , she wrote , " I accepted the above commission as Captain in the C . S . A . when it was offered . But , I would not allow my name to be placed upon the pay roll of the army . " The Robertson Hospital , as it was known , treated patients continuously throughout the war , discharging its last soldier on 13 June 1865 . During its four - year existence , Robertson Hospital treated 1 , 333 wounded with only seventy - three deaths , the lowest mortality rate of any military hospital during the Civil War . Author and Civil War diarist Mary Chesnut was a frequent visitor to the hospital . She recorded " Our Florence Nightingale is Sally Tompkins . " The more than 1 , 300 men fortunate to be sent to Robertson Hospital called her simply " Captain Sally . " After the War . Sally ' s family fortune had been depleted after the Civil War , although she stayed active for many years in charitable work . She remained unmarried throughout her life . Eventually , she went to live in the charitable Richmond Home for Confederate Women in 1905 . Death , legacy . Upon her death in 1916 , Sally Tompkins was buried with full military honors at Christ Church in Mathews County . She joins the ranks of women like Clara Barton who responded to the urgent needs which were presented during the Civil War , especially after the Battle of First Bull Run when the realities of warfare became stark in both the Union and Confederate capital cities . They helped develop nursing into the skilled profession it was to become . Sally Tompkins reported obsession with cleanliness led to progress in sanitation during treatment . Her proven lower mortality rates as a result are exceptionally notable among her many legacies to the United States and medical providers everywhere , practices still in widespread use .