Published in 1861 just as the War Between the States was getting under way, this now almost impossible to find manual provided caregivers - primarily nurses sponsored by the Woman's Central Association of Relief (WCAR) - with a host of recipes and treatments for internal and external ailments. While not comprehensive by any means, the manual still gives us an invaluable glimpse into the treatments that were available to doctors and nurses as the United States embarked on its great fratricidal war. This edition of "A Manual of Directions Prepared for the Use of the Nurses in the Army Hospitals" also includes an introduction by historian Charles Culbertson; a look at the life of Elizabeth Blackwell, WCAR's founder and the first woman to graduate from a medical school in the United States; an 1862 New York Times article describing activities of the WCAR; and an overview of the practice of medicine in the Civil War.