In 1862 Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) served briefly as an army nurse in Washington, D.C. Alcott would use her experiences, cut short by typhoid fever, as material for Hospital Sketches published in 1863, her first success as an author. Alcott wrote this letter from the Union Hotel Hospital in Georgetown to her friend Hannah Stevenson (1807-1887), candidly stating "Having no brothers and a womanly man for a father I find myself rather staggered by some of the performances about me...." At the time Alcott wrote this letter, Georgetown was a separate city but later became part of Washington, D.C.