Claudia Houston, New Bern Historical Society
A 19-year-old nurse born in Massachusetts is buried in New Bern’s National Cemetery under a soldier’s headstone by order of the Secretary of War. What is her story?
Carrie Eliza Cutter (1842–1862) was the daughter of Dr. Calvin Cutter, surgeon of the 21st Massachusetts Volunteers. After graduating Mt. Holyoke College and a private German school, she joined the 21st Massachusetts as a nurse. During Ambrose Burnside’s North Carolina Expedition in 1862, she worked on the steamship ‘Northerner’, from which she cared for the wounded during the Battle of Roanoke Island.
Carrie’s fiancé was Charles Plummer Tidd. He was born in Maine, and first met Carrie’s father, Dr. Calvin Cutter, a staunch abolitionist, in Kansas in 1856 where Dr. Cutter became a father figure to Tidd. In 1859, Charles Palmer Tidd met John Brown, the abolitionist, and they became friends. He became a Captain in John Brown’s army and led a successful foray into Missouri. Tidd was not in favor of John Brown’s infamous raid on Harper’s Ferry but he was in the vicinity, at a farm house with several other members of the group, waiting for direction. When they heard that things had gone awry for their leader, the group decided to escape, rather than be captured or killed. Tidd made his way to Canada, but in 1861 returned to Worcester, Massachusetts where he enlisted in Co. K of the 21st Massachusetts. In order to avoid arrest, he changed his name by dropping his last name and enlisting as Charles Palmer. He received a promotion to Sergeant in November of 1861 and became part of the Coastal Carolina expedition. He became ill on the ship the Northerner, and Carrie Cutter tried in vain to nurse him back to health. He died of enteritis, an inflammation of the bowels on February 8, 1862 and he was buried on Roanoke Island. Carrie’s wish was that when she died she be buried beside him. Carrie soon became ill with spotted fever and died on board the ‘Northerner’ March 24, 1862 at the age of nineteen. General Burnside ordered her to be buried with full military honors on Roanoke Island next to her fiancé.
Carrie Cutter was the first woman to be interred at New Bern National Cemetery when it opened in 1867 and permission to do so was granted by a special act of Congress. She was disinterred from Roanoke Island and is buried in Section 10, grave 1698. Ostensibly, Charles Palmer Tidd was disinterred from Roanoke Island as well and lays next to her in grave 1697. The grave, however, is marked as “Charles E. Coledge”. No one knows why.
What we do know is that Carrie Cutter deserves recognition as a young nurse who sacrificed her life to save others and it is fitting that she was honored by burial at the National Cemetery.