Wisconsin women rallied to support the Union during the Civil War. They became nurses, hospital matrons, sanitary agents, and ministers. Cordelia A. Perrine Harvey attained national prominence for her role in promoting convalescent aid for sick and wounded soldiers.

Cordelia had moved with her family to Southport (Kenosha) in 1840. She married Louis P. Harvey, who became governor in 1862. That April, Governor Harvey drowned while visiting Wisconsin troops wounded at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee. Mrs. Harvey thereupon dedicated herself to improving conditions for hospitalized soldiers. She criticized military hospitals for improper sanitation, urging that disabled soldiers be sent northward to medical centers near their homes where care would be better.

In 1863 Cordelia Harvey met Abraham Lincoln and convinced the president to approve the establishment of recuperation hospitals in the North. The first of three such hospitals in Wisconsin opened in Madison. (The other two were in Milwaukee and Prairie du Chien.) The Harvey United States Army Hospital in Madison was redesignated the Wisconsin Soldiers' Orphans Home in 1866. It operated under Mrs. Harvey's direction until 1867, and it closed in 1874.

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