9 September 1861: Sally Louisa Tompkins
Commissioned Confederate Army Captain

Sally Tompkins was the first and only woman to receive a commission in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Like many wealthy society women in both the North and South, Miss Tompkins used her social standing and personal wealth to alleviate the suffering of sick and wounded soldiers. Neither side was prepared for the vast number of casualties created by the first battles of the war. All manner of public and private buildings were pressed into emergency service as military hospitals. One such Richmond home owned by Judge Robertson was converted by Tompkins at her own expense and opened as Robertson Hospital. Her tireless efforts, organizational skills and insistence on strict cleanliness made Robertson the most successful of the 32 such hospitals operating in the city. Of the 1,333 patients treated there only 74 died---a phenomenal 94.5% survival rate for the civil war.

Shortly after Robertson Hospital opened, President Jefferson Davis turned the operations of all private hospitals over to the Confederate Army Medical Department. It was at that time that he also granted Miss Tompkins a commission as Captain of cavalry (unattached) in the Confederate Army. Some say it was an honorary title given out of gratitude but it is also likely that it was a means to keep “Captain Sally”, as she became known, in Richmond. Many civilians were being evacuated at the time and the only way she could stay at her post was to have military rank. In any event, she accepted the title (while refusing the pay and allotments) because it gave her some leverage in obtaining supplies. She managed the hospital for four years until 13 June 1865, two months after Federal occupation.

Captain Sally never married, though she received numerous proposals from her patients which she dismissed by saying, “Poor fellows, they are not yet well of their fevers”. After the war, Tompkins continued to spend so much of her personal fortune in philanthropic ventures that she was compelled to live in the Richmond Home for Confederate Women. She died in 1916 and was buried with full military honors.