[Photo:  Arabella Barlow is woman standing on left.  May 1864, Sanitary Commission, Fredericksburg, VA. Source: Library of Congress.]

 

 

Arabella Wharton Griffith Barlow (1824–1864) was born in Somerville, New Jersey, on February 29, 1824. Following the divorce of her parents during her childhood, she was raised in Burlington, New Jersey, by Eliza Wallace, a maternal cousin. There she matured into an intelligent, independent, and well-educated young woman.

 

Arabella maintained close ties to Somerville, where her mother continued to reside. Throughout her adult life, she frequently returned to Somerville to visit family, including during periods when her husband was recovering from the severe wounds he suffered during the Civil War.

 

In the 1850s, she established herself in New York City, where she worked as a ladies' companion for affluent families while also contributing articles on etiquette to the New-York Tribune. She married the future Union General Francis Channing Barlow in April 1861, just as the Civil War began.

 

Refusing to remain on the home front, Arabella volunteered with the United States Sanitary Commission, serving in military hospitals and on the battlefields of the Peninsula Campaign, Antietam, Gettysburg, and the Overland Campaign. She became known for her courage, compassion, and tireless devotion to wounded soldiers, twice nursing her gravely wounded husband back to health.

 

After months of relentless service in the field hospitals of the Army of the Potomac, Arabella contracted a fatal illness. She died on July 27, 1864, at the age of forty, sacrificing her own life in service to the Union cause. Though long overshadowed by her husband's military fame and other Civil War nurses, Arabella Griffith Barlow's remarkable story is one of patriotism, resilience, and selfless dedication.

 

Today, she is increasingly recognized as one of New Jersey's most compelling Civil War heroines and as an enduring example of the vital contributions women made during the conflict.

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Andrea M. Quinn

Historian & Author

Francis C. Barlow Legacy and Beyond