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Sallie Chapman Gordon Law (nicknamed Mother of the Confederacy) (1805–1894) was the first recorded Confederate nurse in the American Civil War. She was the president of the Southern Mothers’ Association, a group of women from the Second Presbyterian Church in Memphis, Tennessee.
The Southern Mothers started making uniforms for Tennessee soldiers before the state had even seceded from the Union. They started with only twelve beds with which to treat soldiers, but soon moved to a larger facility.
When Leonidas Polk dispatched troops to Columbus, Kentucky, Law went up to Kentucky with boxes of supplies. The Southern Mothers' worked at Overton hospital, tending to Confederate and Union patients. She also went to La Grange, Georgia, where she worked at Law Hospital, which was named after her.
After sending boxes of blankets, socks, and underclothes to soldiers on Dalton, Georgia, she was honored with a parade.