Editing Lucy Webb Hayes (section)

== Civil War ==
When the first news of the firing on [[Fort Sumter]] reached [[Cincinnati]], Lucy was in favor of the war. She felt that if she had been at [[Fort Sumter]] with a garrison of women, there might not have been a surrender. Her enthusiasm encouraged Rutherford to enlist as a major in the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry.<ref name=":0" />  As often as she could, Lucy – sometimes with her mother and children – visited Rutherford in the field. She often assisted her brother, Dr. Joe Webb, in caring for the sick.<ref name=":3" />

In September 1862, Rutherford was injured in battle in [[Middletown, Maryland|Middleton, Maryland]]. Thinking he was hospitalized in Washington due to a paperwork error, Lucy rushed to the nation's capital. She eventually found Hayes in Maryland and after two weeks of convalescence, the Hayeses returned to [[Ohio]], traveling by train with other wounded troops.<ref name=":1" />

After Rutherford returned to his regiment, Lucy became a regular visitor in Rutherford's Army camp.<ref name=":1" /> She ministered to the wounded, cheered the homesick, and comforted the dying.<ref name=":4" /> She also secured supplies from Northern civilians to better equip the Union soldiers.<ref name=":5" /> Lucy was often joined by her mother at camp and her brother Joe was the regiment's surgeon.<ref name=":1" /> The men of the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry affectionately nicknamed her "Mother Lucy" for her service.<ref name=":4" /> At one point, twenty-year-old [[William McKinley]] spent hours tending a campfire because Lucy sat nearby.<ref name=":1" />

The couple's infant son, Joe, died while the family was at an Army camp.<ref name=":1" />