Cornelia Hancock (February 8, 1840 – December 31, 1927)[2] was a celebrated volunteer nurse, serving the injured and infirmed of the Union Army during the American Civil War.

[2] Hancock's chance to serve came when her brother-in-law (Ellen's husband) Henry T. Child, a volunteer surgeon, offered to take her to the Gettysburg battlefield in July 1863.

In October she tended to the large numbers of hungry and injured escaped slaves who were arriving in Washington, D.C.[2] On February 10, 1864, Hancock joined the II Corps and served with them at the II Corps Hospital near Brandy Station, Virginia,[7] at the Battle of the Wilderness[2] and the Siege of Petersburg.

[5] After the war, she opened a school for African Americans in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.

She died of nephritis in 1927, aged 87, and her ashes were buried at Cedar Hills Friends Cemetery in Harmersville (now Salem), New Jersey.