Ella King Newsom

Ella King Newsom (1833–1919; also known as Ella King Newsome) was a nurse for the Confederacy in the American Civil War. She earned the nickname of the "Florence Nightingale of the South." Newsom served as he matron of Chattanooga's Academy Hospital, working on the front in Tennessee from 1861–1862.

Pre-war life Ella King Newsom was born in Brandon, Mississippi, in 1838 to Julia and Thomas S. N. King. Her father—T.S.King—was a Baptist minister; she was the second of seven children.

Post-war life Newsom spent the entirety of her wealth during the war on supplies and supporting the medical effort. She remarried to Confederate veteran Colonel W.H. Trader in 1867. The two had one surviving child, Mary. Newsom died of an illness on January 18, 1919.