Joanna Fox Waddill

Who was Joanna Fox Waddill?

Joanna Painter Waddill was a nurse assisting wounded and ill Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War. She became celebrated as the "Florence Nightingale of the Confederacy" for her humanitarianism.

Joanna Fox was born in Bristol, Pennsylvania, to James C. Fox and his wife Catherine Bessonett. Fox was a brickmason who moved his family to the Mississippi River port city of Natchez, Mississippi, when Joanna was a baby.

Fox was only 22 years old when the Civil War erupted in early 1861. She and two other Natchez ladies traveled to the front lines to serve as volunteer nurses in such places as Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Tennessee. When the Union Navy captured Natchez as they advanced toward Vicksburg, Mississippi, Waddill hid a Confederate flag under her petticoat to prevent its capture.

Near the end of the war, Fox became the matron of the Confederate hospital in Meridian, Mississippi. There, she met Louisiana druggist George D. Waddill while they both tended sick and dying Confederate soldiers. The couple were married in Lauderdale, Mississippi on September 26, 1864.

The couple moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where they operated a drugstore for many years. She became active in the Confederate Memorial Association and other societies.