Ann Bradford Stokes (1830–1903) was an American nurse. A former slave, Stokes eventually volunteered in the United States Navy as a nurse on the USS Red Rover in 1863. She is the first American woman to receive a military pension for her own services and was one of the first African American women to serve as a nurse in the Navy.
Stokes was born in 1830 into slavery as Ann Bradford in Rutherford County, Tennessee. [1] In January 1863, she had escaped slavery and was taken aboard a ship. [1] That same month, she volunteered to work as a nurse on the United States Navy hospital ship USS Red Rover where she assisted Sisters of the Holy Cross. [1] [2] Stokes was assigned the rank of "first class boy" and was paid for her work. [3] Stokes worked until October 1864 when she resigned due to exhaustion. [1]
She married Gilbert Stokes, who had also worked on the Red Rover and they moved to Illinois. [1] After Gilbert died in 1866, Stokes remarried in 1867 to George Bowman. [1] She applied for a military pension first based on her marriages in the 1880s, but was turned down. [1] Later, after learning to read and write, she applied again for a pension based on her own military service and she was granted a pension of $12 a month in 1890. [1] Not only was Stokes one of the first African American women to serve as a nurse in the US. Navy, but she was also the first American woman to receive a pension for her own service in the military. [4]
Stokes lived in Belknap, Illinois until she died in 1903. [1]