Everyone knows the battles of the Civil War, with their generals and their soldiers. But few people living today know the story of Mary "Mother" Bickerdyke, a hero in her time. Mother: The Life of Mary Bickerdyke is the story of a woman who revolutionized the healing process. Mary travelled the width and breadth of America, working in hospitals, asylums, prisons, missions, houses of the poor...and at many a battlefield. She is most often recognized for her work during the American Civil War, but her loving toil occurred throughout her long life. Mary helped soldiers and generals, paupers and farmers, orphans and amputees. She loved her country and its people, and gave up a life of ease to care for others. As Mary Livermore once wrote, the good woman "lived a grand, good life, packed with noble deeds wrought for others." Now, her astounding history has been captured for the modern reader in Mother: The Life of Mary Bickerdyke.