Not all of the suffering in the American Civil War was experienced by front-line soldiers. Doctors and nurses shared in what we today call post traumatic stress disorder. Not many of them wrote as eloquently as Elvira Powers. Having already suffered the death of four children before the war, and with her husband away in the Union army, Elvira Powers headed to the south to work in the Union hospitals. "'A hospital is no place to form attachments,' said one lady in this hospital to another. Perhaps it is not wise to form attachments, but if they grow themselves, as between a mother and sick child, with every cry of pain, or bestowal of attention, what is one to do about it? It happens that my large family of boys, being under the guardianship of their Uncle Sam, are liable at any time to be torn from my maternal oversight."