Amanda Lora Hudson Bissell

MRS. LORA HUDSON BISSELL.

Mrs. Bissell, best known to the 44th Regiment as A. Lora Hudson, was born near Albany, Aug. 4, 1839, the daughter of a Baptist clergyman. Early left an orphan, she followed the vocation of school teacher until she began her work as an Army nurse. It was at her desk after school hours that she wrote the words of the “Ellsworth Avengers.” This song came to the notice of the regiment. A committee called on Miss Hudson, asked her permission to adopt the words as its regimental song, and learning of her desire to serve her country actively, invited her to accompany them as the Daughter of the Regiment. This she did, being with the regiment during her entire service. While matron of the 3d Brigade Hospital in 1861 at Hall's Hill, Va., she met Dr. Bissell, then Assistant Surgeon of the Regiment, to whom she was married in 1864 while she was still in the service.

After the War Mrs. Bissell resided in Buffalo, N. Y., until her death in 1899.

She was an efficient and self sacrificing hospital nurse and never lost her love for “her boys” as she always called the men of the 44th, and they were as loyal to her as she to them.

It was her great pride that her name is engraved on the Gettysburg Monument.

Mrs. Lora Hudson Bissell, in A History of the Forty-fourth Regiment New York Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War 1861-1865 by Eugene Arus Nash, 1911, between pages 24&25. (PDF)