Mary O'Connell (better known as Sister Anthony, S.C.) (1814-December 8, 1897) was an Irish immigrant to the United States, who became a Roman Catholic Religious Sister. Her work with the wounded during the American Civil War and health care in general caused her to be known as "the angel of the battlefield" and "the Florence Nightingale of America."
She was born in Limerick, Ireland, in 1814, the daughter of William and Catherine Murphy O'Connell. She emigrated to the United States, and attended the Ursuline Academy in Charlestown, Massachusetts. She then entered the novitiate of the American Sisters of Charity in St. Joseph's Valley, Maryland, founded by Saint Elizabeth Seton, and took the name of Sister Anthony. She was in Cincinnati from 1837 through 1852, when the Sisters in Cincinnati became independent of their founding motherhouse in Emmitsburg, Maryland. She was placed in charge of St. John's Hostel for Invalids, a new hospital.
Sister Anthony was an active nurse during the American Civil War, serving at Camp Dennison, and the battlefields of Winchester, Virginia, the Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, Richmond, Virginia, Nashville, Tennessee, Gallipolis, Ohio, Culpeper Court House, Virginia, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, Pittsburg Landing, Tennessee, and Lynchburg, Virginia.
In recognition of her service during the Civil War, in 1873, two citizens of Cincinnati--neither of them Catholic--purchased the United States Marine Hospital for her under the direction of her order, with the intention that the property be used as a maternity hospital. It opened that same year as the St. Joseph Infant Asylum. It still serves as as St. Joseph Hospital, a residential facility for children and adults with severe mental and multiple physical disabilities.
Sister Anthony also received recognition for her work in the yellow fever epidemic of 1877. She retired from active service in 1880, and died in 1897 in Cumminsville, Cincinnati, Ohio.