Joanna Fox Waddill

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Joanna Painter (Fox) Waddill (September 24, 1838 – January 3, 1899) was a Confederate nurse who cared for wounded and sick soldiers during the Civil War. She was nicknamed the “Florence Nightingale of the Confederacy” for her humanitarian work.

She was born in Bristol, Pennsylvania, to James C. Fox and Catherine Bessonett. Her family moved to Natchez, Mississippi, when she was a baby. She was 22 when the Civil War began in 1861 and, with two other Natchez women, served as a volunteer nurse on the front lines in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee. When Natchez was captured by the Union Navy near Vicksburg, she hid a Confederate flag under her petticoat to keep it from being taken.

Near the end of the war, Fox became matron of the Confederate hospital in Meridian, Mississippi, where she met Louisiana druggist George D. Waddill. They married on September 26, 1864, in Lauderdale, Mississippi (near Corinth). The couple later moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and ran a drugstore for many years. Joanna remained active in the Confederate Memorial Association and other groups. The Joanna Waddill Camp #294 of the Daughters of the Confederacy is named in her honor and continues to be involved in local Civil War memorial efforts.