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Women in the Civil War. The Civil W ar is the first time women played a significant role in the war. Women turned their attention to the outside world. Women soldiers easily concealed their gender in order to fulfill their desire to fight. .
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The Civil War is the first time women played a significant role in the war. Women turned their attention to the outside world. Women soldiers easily concealed their gender in order to fulfill their desire to fight.
Women participated in the war by being nurses, cooks, making clothes, doing laundry, and being spies. Some women snuck into the army as men.
Nearly 20,000 women worked more directly for the Union war effort. Free enslaved African American women also volunteered in the war effort.
Women Nurses • Many women wanted to take nursing to the front line, inspired by the work by Florence Nightingale and her fellow nurses in the Crimean War. (They tried to find a way to work on the front line caring for the sick and injured soldiers.) • In June 1861, the federal government agreed to create a preventive hygienic and sanitary service for the benefits for the army.
Women Nurses, continued…. • Army nurses traveled from hospital to hospital, providing “humane and efficient” care for wounded, sick, dying soldiers. • They also acted as mothers and housekeepers too. • Women nurses were know as “havens in a heartless world”
Women Nurses, continued…. • The activist Dorothea Dix, the superintendent of Army Nurses, put out a call for all, responsible, maternal volunteers who would not distract the troops or behave in unseemly or unfeminine ways. • Dix insisted her nurses be “past 30 years of age, healthy, plain almost to repulsion in dress, and devoid of personal attractions.”
The Ladies Aid Societies • baked, canned, and grew food. • Sewed clothing (knitted socks and gloves) • Made bedding • Organized door to door fundraising • Also, organized fairs, and performances to get medical supplies and other necessities Women collected almost 15 million dollars in supplies.
Laundresses • Their job was just plain hard work. • Begin their day getting water from a creek. • In the winter they had to carry an axe to break open ice. (Very many disasters could have happened.)
LaundressesContinued…. She had to chop her own wood to start fire for heating the water. Every time she did laundry in was a specific way. Water was so hard to get it often wasn’t changed in between loads.
War Soldiers • Women were not allowed to enlist in the army. • Historians estimate around 400+ women fought in the army.
War Soldiers continued… Mary Scaberry • Enlisted in the summer of 1862 as a private. • 17 years old. • On Nov. 7 of 1862 she was admitted to the general hospital in Lebanon, Kentucky.
War soldiers continued. Mary Scaberry • She was suffering from a serious fever. • She was transferred to a hospital in Louisville, on Nov. 10. • She was named sexual incompatibility.
War Soldiers continued… Sarah Edmonds • A Canadian by birth. • She enlisted as a private in Detroit on May 25th, 1861. • On April 19th, 1863, Edmonds deserted because she acquired malaria.
War Soldiers continued… • She left because she feared hospitalization would reveal her gender. • In 1867 she married L.H. Seelve, they raised 3 kids. • In 1886 she received a government pension letter stating they knew she was a women. • She died on Sept. 5th, 1898 in Texas.
Women of the Confederacy Many southern women especially wealthy ones relied on slaves for everything and never had to do much work. However even they were forced by the emergencies of wartime to expand their definition of proper female behavior.
Women of the Confederacy Continued… • White women in the South threw themselves into the war effort with the same zeal as their northern counterparts. • The Confederacy was poor compared to the Union and their resources. • The women did much of their work on their own or through local auxiliaries and relief societies.
Women of the Confederacy Continued… • They cooked and sewed for their “boys” • They provided uniforms + blankets + sandbags + other supplies for entire regiments. • They wrote letters to soldiers and worked as untrained nurses in makeshift hospitals. • They even cared for wounded soldiers in their own homes.
Women of the Confederacy Continued… • Slave women were not freed to fight for the Union. • Moreover, they had the true luxury of “true womanhood” to begin with. • One historian pointed out “being a woman never saved a single female slave from hard labor, beatings, rape, family separation, and death”
Women of the Confederacy Continued… • The Civil War promised freedom but, it also added to theses women’s burdens. • Women slaves had to take place of men slaves at some plantations. • Some slaves were used in battle.
The wealthy southern wife's (mothers) got a new definition of a proper female.
Women Spies • Women spies went under cover for either side of the war. • It was a very dangerous job especially if they got caught. • Some women were romantic spies. • They made soldiers feel sympathy and love for them.
Women Spies continued… Pauline Cushman • She was a lady who desired to serve her country. • She enlisted in the secret service. • She was sent to find and end Confederate missions.
