Mary Phinney von Olnhausen

Baroness Mary Phinney von Olnhausen (1818–1902) was an American nurse, abolitionist, and diarist. left Saxony after the German revolutions of 1848–1849 and also due to financial troubles, which led him to sell of his property. In the 1850s he was making a meager living as a chemist in a dye-house of the Manchester Mills, where he met Mary Phinney.

They married on May 1, 1858 (she was 40 years old at the time) and he died two years later in 1860.

American Civil War During the American Civil War, von Olnhausen served as the head nurse at the Mansion House Hospital in Alexandria, Virginia and Mansfield General Hospital at Morehead, North Carolina. After the war, she was discharged in August 1865, returning home to help raise her brother's children in Illinois.

Franco-Prussian War With the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, she volunteered to serve as a nurse with the Prussian Army and was accepted on the basis of being the Baroness von Olnhausen. She served in field hospitals in Meung and Vendome.

Awards Phinney was awarded a Cross of Merit for Women and Girls in 1873 by Kaiser Wilhelm I, which is similar to an Iron Cross. She died in Boston in April, 1902. Mary Phinney von Olnhausen was the head nurse at the Mansion House Hospital during the occupation of Alexandria, Virginia.

In popular culture The book Adventures of an Army Nurse in Two Wars was edited in 1903 by James Phinney Munroe and published in 1904, after Mary had died. It is based on the diaries and correspondence of Mary Phinney von Olnhausen. The first part of the book talks about the lives of the people that worked in the Mansion House Hospital in Alexandria as well as her work at the Mansfield General Hospital at Morehead, North Carolina. The second part discusses her work as a nurse again in 1870 in the Franco-Prussian War.

In 2015, the PBS Masterpiece Theatre produced Mercy Street, a fictional mini series portraying life in the Mansion House Hospital where Phinney was stationed.