After escaping from slavery in 1863, Ann Bradford Stokes was captured and taken aboard the Union hospital ship USS Red Rover. After President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, she volunteered as a nurse with the Sister of the Holy Cross of Notre Dame. Stokes became the first black woman to serve aboard a U.S. military vessel, and was among the first women to serve as a nurse in the Navy. Officially rated as a “first-class boy,” a rank given to young men under seventeen who performed general sailor duties, she became the first woman to apply and be granted a pension based on her own military service in 1890.

Last Updated: 29 March 2023