Editor, Gazette-Journal:

I am writing in response to the article concerning the bronze statue honoring Capt. Sally Tompkins who was a candidate of the then-proposed Virginia Women’s Monument: Voices in the Garden. Our small rural community, Mathews, donated/raised $200,000 to have a life-sized bronze statue of Ms. Tompkins.

I am an R.N. of many years, as are my husband, our two daughters, three granddaughters, and one granddaughter in school currently. The choice to enter the health care industry is not only a career but also certainly a calling to help your fellow man. I have the utmost respect for Capt. Tompkins’s contribution to her profession as a Civil War nurse and hospital administrator.

What she did, in that day and age, was nothing short of miraculous.

On July 21, 1861, she opened Robertson Hospital located in the home of Judge John Robertson after the first Battle of Manassas. The Surgeon General at that time decided military hospitals run by commissioned officers should replace the many private hospitals, as they did not provide their patients with sufficient care, feeling that hospitals under the supervision of the government would better serve our soldiers and their families.

Sally Tompkins worked as a nurse and hospital administrator, funding this with her own money. She had the highest number of former patients returning to duty; therefore, the Surgeon General commissioned her a captain to keep the 22-bed hospital open. Capt. Tompkins and her staff nursed 1,333 Confederate soldiers with the remarkable record of returning 94 percent of them to service. That number today is staggering, let alone this was over 160 years ago and, as we all know, medical services were archaic at best. She stayed at the hospital until its closing in June of 1865.

I am a woman of Christian and moral standards, and as a nurse, have provided care to all different people of many diverse backgrounds, not caring where they were from or their ethnicity. Capt. Tompkins, funding a hospital with her own money and refusing compensation from the military, was a remarkable woman. She kept impeccable administrative and nursing records.

Now she is disqualified as a member of the 12 women in the Virginia Monument: Voices in the Garden. We all know what a tumultuous time in our history this was and understand the gravity of what the Civil War meant. However what she did, given the circumstances, makes her more than eligible to be in this garden. Erasing history, historical records, monuments and historical people will not, and cannot change the past. It cannot also change the fact that what Capt. Tompkins did for four years, in the face of war was truly noteworthy and deserving of honor.

What is wrong with our nation? We are all God’s children, and He does not differentiate, why should we? Bring Capt. Sally Tompkins home to our and her beloved Mathews County.

Catherine Jenkins R.N.
Susan, Va.