http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almira_Fales

As early as 1860, she foresaw the approaching struggle, the Civil War being about to start, and began collecting and preparing articles for hospital use. At the beginning of the war, she cared for sick and wounded soldiers at the Battle of Shiloh at Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee and other battlefield sites. The government placed an ambulance at her command, and during the war she assisted in hospitals in the neighborhood of Washington, at Fredericksburg, Virginia, on the Peninsula, and elsewhere.[1]

She pitched a large tent in the yard of her home and used it as a place to care for sick and disabled soldiers until they could be sent home. For some time, Fales was charged by the government with the superintendence of soldiers sent from the hospitals in and around Washington to hospitals in New York and elsewhere