ABSTRACT
The committee of the national Patriotic Fund, established to assist war widows and families, ruled that there is not sufficient evidence to show that Private Butler died from the effects of the Russian War. In the first half of the nineteenth century, soldiers and their families were harshly treated. A few blankets slung on a rope across the width of a long barrack-room for flimsy privacy divided the single and married accommodation. At length, Parliament agreed that surviving war widows should receive 5s a week. When Nell was nearly 80, even that was taken away from her. A month before she died, she wrote: the author often dream and awake frightened, having seen Michael twice the last month. The experiences of another woman who went to the Crimea were quite different. Mrs. Frances Duberly kept a detailed journal, which was printed and published. Nell Butler had scribbled her memories in a lined exercise book, later kept in a sideboard drawer.
