Eliza Ann Harrington

4th child of SYLVANUS HARRINGTON & JANE ANDERSON aka: ELIZABETH ANN "ELIZA" HARRINGTON

Civil War: 1862, Union Army volunteer nurse Religion: Methodist/Episcopal, converted to Christian Science in 1895

Died: at age 71; uterine cancer

Married: May 20, 1858, ISAAC WILLARD CHATFIELD, Havana, Mason Co., Illinois (Isaac was 22, Eliza 17)

Nine children: 1. Ella Clara CHATFIELD 1859 - 1948 2. Clark W. Charles CHATFIELD 1861 - 1861 3. Elmer Ellsworth CHATFIELD 1863 - 1962 4. Phil Van Wert CHATFIELD 1865 - 1883 5. Jacqueline CHATFIELD 1867 - 1963 6. Charles Henry CHATFIELD 1870 - 1942 7. Myrtle Lovina CHATFIELD 1873 - 1877 8. Grace CHATFIELD 1874 - 1874 9. Calla Mabel CHATFIELD 1878 - 1958

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With over 250,000 men from Illinois serving as volunteer soldiers, virtually every Illinois woman was the mother, sister, daughter, aunt or wife of a soldier. Duty also called Eliza, and although she was a young mother of a three-year-old daughter and had lost a second child at birth just five months before, she joined the Civil War as a Union Army nurse. In February of 1862, she served at the Battle of Fort Donelson in Tennessee where General Ulysses S. Grant and the North won their first important victory—at the cost of 2,500 Union and 2,000 Confederate casualties. Two months later Eliza, one of the 5,000 female nurses serving in the war, was at the Battle of Shilo where General Grant's troops in blue encountered the Confederate troops of Generals Stonewall Jackson and P.T.G. Beauregard. Overcome by sickness during battle and accompanied by the weariness of war, the memory of thousands of men dying on the ground, and the horror of crimson staining land, she was taken to St. Louis, Missouri to recover. The losses on both sides were overwhelming: the Union lost 1,735 men, had 7,882 wounded and 3,956 captured. The Confederacy had 1,728 killed, 8,012 wounded, with 959 taken prisoner.

On June 12, 1911, after fifty-three years of marriage and nine children (four of whom she buried), Eliza died from uterine cancer, her burial services under the auspices of the Christian Scientists. by C. Sevenau

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Note: In records prior to this time, Sylvanus' (Eliza's father) name is spelled as Herrington or Herington—in most records after—the spelling is Harrington. His children Susannah, Clark and William appear to use the Harrington spelling. His daughter Eliza's name is spelled Herrington in many records throughout her life (other than her marriage record as Harington).

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