"I do not suppose an officer in the army, from general down to second lieutenant, ever received his commission with greater delight or enthusiasm," she recalled of her acceptance.

[1] Early in 1864 she was assigned to Benton Barracks in St. Louis, Missouri,[2] as a ward matron under the supervision of Emily Elizabeth Parsons.

Her pension as a disabled veteran's widow was increased by Congress in 1888, with acknowledgment of her own service: "Prior to her marriage with the soldier she was a hospital nurse, served faithfully as such, and was exposed to and contracted a contagious disease (measles), with which she was seriously and dangerously sick, from which and its results her health was so seriously and permanently impaired that she is a suffering invalid at the present time, and largely disabled from doing any labor for her own support.

"[4] Tannehill's service as an army nurse was mentioned in pro-suffrage literature, as an example of Iowa women's contributions to the nation.

After the war, in 1866, she married Eli Helmick Coddington, a disabled veteran and a Methodist Episcopal minister from Mount Pleasant, Iowa.