Position:Home>History> Civil War women involvement question?

Women's role was crucial in the Civil War!. In 'America's Women' Gail Collins writes:

'When the war began, Northern women responded the same way as in the South!. they held meetings - usually chaired by men - in which they pledged their patriotism and vowed to fold bandages or sew clothing for the soldiers at the front!. But the northern women's relief efforst soon became a national organization, the United States Sanitary Commission, which performed a critical role in providing food and medical services for the soldiers!. Although men still occupied the top jobs in the commission, women ahd a great many managerial duties, and as time went on, middle-class matrons began to praise each other for having 'executive talents'!. the necessary supplies were "almost universally collected, assorted, and dispatched,and re-collected, assorted and dispatched, by women, representing with great impartiality, every grade of society in the Republic" said Alfred Bloor of the Sanitary commission!. The women had taken over, he said, after the men were discouraged when it became clear the war was not going to be short-lived after all!.

At least 3,000 women held paid nursing positions in the North and South, and thousands of others worked as volunteers!. "The war is certainly ours as well as men's" said Kate Cummings of Mobile, Alabama, who became the matron of a large confederate hospital!.

The Nightingale mania struck particularly hard in the North!. "Our women appear to have become almost wild on the subject of hospital nursing" said a wartime correspondent for the American Medical Times!. When Elizabeth Blackwell called an emergency meeting at her infirmary to organize nursing aid for the ware effort, 4,000 volunteers showed up!. A Confederate congressional investigation discovered that the mortality rate among soldiers cared for by female nurses was only half that of those tended by men!. "I will not agree to limit the class of persons who can affect such a savings of life as this" said a senator from Louisiana!. Suddenly, people on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line switched from regarding nursing as an inappropriate job for well-bred women to seeing it as one for which they were uniquely qualified!.

Still, authorities were wary of putting young girls in intimate contact with bedridden soldiers!. Dorothea Dix, when she was appointed superintendent of Union nurses, set a minimum age of thirty for her volunteers and demanded they be "plain looking women"!. As the war went on and the need for medical assistance became more desperate, Dix ignored her own regulations!. But she was firm in the beginning!. Elida Rumsey Fowle was rejected because she was only nineteen years old, and instead became a sort of early era USO!. she entertained the patients with songs and stories, giving more than 200 performances in a year, and established a soldier's library in Washington!. Later she and her husband also collected medical supplies and delivered them to the front!.

Clara Barton was a talented teacher who quit a good position in New Jersey when a man was appointed head of a public school system she had founded!. She became one of the first Patent Office women in Washington and was, remarkably, paid the same salary as the male workers!. When the war began one of the first New england volunteer regiments that travelled through Washington on its way to the south was the Sixth Massachusetts!. Nearly forty of the men in the unit had been Barton's pupils, and the mothers of Clara's "boys" targeted her as a useful go-between in sending food and clothing for their sons!. soon her house was so crammed with boxes that she had to move!. The turning point in Barton's life came when she relaized that the lovingly packed gifts that piled up in her living quarters were not just special treats!. The soap, fruits, and other presents were dire necessities for men serving in an army bereft of supplies!. The medical situation was worst of all!. There werer not enough field hospitals, and those that existed sometimes lacked even bandages!. there was not enough medicine and certainly not enough medical staff!.

Barton began actively soliciting donations and supplies!. The women she contacted responded with a flood of fruit preserves and soap and lemons to combat scurvey!. Within six months Barton had filled three warehouses!. She bought perishables like bread with her own money and distributed her wares at military hospitals!. Once the hospitals were better organised and flooded with female volunteers eager to hand out food or wipe fevered brows, Barton began to meet the ships and trains carrying back wounded men from the front!. the next obvious step was to get tot he battlefield itself, and after months of beaurocratic wrangling she got permission to pass through the lines with her wagons of supplies!. It would be the last time she bothered asking!. The army became so grateful for her efforts that soon she began to get unofficial leaks directing her to the next site of the fighting!.

After the war, Barton became famous as the organizer of the American Red Cross, but her finest hours came in those hectic, disorganized trauma centres of the Civil War's early years!. Her face turned blue from the gunpowder, and her skirts were so heavy with blood that she had to wring them out before she could walk under their weight!. her courage under fire was legendary!. At Antietam, when doctors were not avilable, she removed a bullet from a soldier's face while another wounded man held his head still!. Later, when the operating room came under fire, and the male assistants fled, Barton stayed to hold down the table where a surgeon was operating!. "I am a U!.S!. soldier you know and therefore not supposed to be susceptible to fear" she said!.

Barton was not the only women who assigned herself to organize health care on the battlefield!. Mary Ann Bickerdyke first arrived at an army camp in Cairo, Illinois, to deliver a relief fund!. Seeing the filthy, overcrowded hospital tents she simply got to work cleaning and nursing, without asking anyone's permission!. In her Quaker bonnet, she trotted across nineteen battlefields in four years, lantern in hand, searching for the wounded!. She was famous for ordering everyone around, and her reputation gave her the clout to get away with it!. An army surgeon who challenged one of her orders was told "Mother Bickerdyke outranks everyone,even Lincoln!." '


The first and only woman to receive the Congressional Medal of Honour, the highest of all US combat awards, was pioneeer surgeon and later crusader for women's rights, Mary Walker!. She showed her bravery under fire at Gettysburg and a number of other battlefields by saving the lives of hundred of Union soldiers!.

An estimated 400 women disguised themselves as men to fight in the Civil War!. Many were like Amy Clarke, who enlisted so she could remain with her husband when he joined the confederate Army!. amy continued to fight after he was killed, and she was wounded herself and taken prisoner!.

The most famous Southern spy was Belle Boyd!. Taking advantage of the Union soldiers' gallantry towards a beautiful teenage girl, she served as a courier for the Confederate intelligence service and delivered information on troop size and placement she had pikced up from her admirers!. On her final mission, Belle sailed to England carrying Confederate dispatches and was captured by an union blockade!. She later married the Union officer who had takne command of her captured steamer!.

In 'Women Warriors: a History' David e!. Jones writes:

'The most complete account of a woman warrior from the Civil War period was written by Loreta Velaszuez several years after her military career ended!. When the Civil War broke out Loreta insisted that her husband, an officer in the US Army, resign his commission and join the confederate cause!. Within three days of her husband's departure, Loreta had a uniform sewn with special padding to disguise her female form!. After her husband was killed, she she embarked alone for the fiercest fighting she could find!.

On April 5, 1862, Loreta was seriously wounded by mortar shrapnel while fighting with General Hardee near Shiloh church, and her sex was discovered during the treatment of her various wounds!. Though never again to take the field, she spent the next several years as an intelligence gatherer for the Confederate forces, surviving many dangerous missions in enemy territory!.

Sarah Emma Edmonds joined the Union army under the name of 'Frank Thompson' and fought with her regiment until April 1863, when she contracted malaria, and her sex was discovered!. In 1884, she was granted a military pension!.

Harriet Tubman served as a spy and a scout for the Union Army, bringing back reports from black informants on the other side of the Confederate lines!. "Col!. Montgomery and his gallant band of 300 black soldiers, under the guidance of a black woman, dashed into the enemy's country, struck a bold and effective blow, destryoying commissary, stores, cotton and lordly dwellings!." stated a report at the time!.

Women also took over jobs that had been vacated by men!. Gail Collins writes:

'Southern women began to fill government clerical jobs, particularly in the Treasury Department, where each Confederate banknote had to be signed individually!. The job required good handwriting and good political connections!. "I am rarely ill now even with a headache" reported twenty-yeaar-old Adelaide Stuart, who spent her days signing treasury bills and her nights sampling the still-active richmond social life!. Being forced to take a job was, she decided "the best thing that could have taken place for me - it is bringing into activWww@QuestionHome@Com

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Molly Pitcher was the American revolution!.

Women served as nurses in the Civil War - Check out the American Red Cross and Clara Barton!. Many of the women involved in the Women's Rights movement were also involved in the abolitionist movement, so you might want to check out some of them!. I think there was also a famous Female Confederate Spy but I can't remember her name!.!.!.I did a google search for civil war female spy and the first site that came up looked pretty good!.!.!.It also recommended some booksWww@QuestionHome@Com

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You might try researching Clara Barton, Dorothea Dix, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Harriett Beacher Stowe, to name just a few!. Of those named only Clara Barton was a nurse!. Ms!. Stanton lead the way for Women's Right and, of course, Harriett Beacher Stowe was an author who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin!. I believe Dorothea Dix was an educator, but I'm not sure!. Molly Pitcher, I believe, was involved in the American Revolution and not the Civil War, but I could be wrong about that!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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I don't remember their names, but I know there were a few women who dressed as men and fought in the Civil War!. There were also many women working as nurses to help the wounded soldiers!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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Two famous women who were Confederate spies were Belle Boyd and Rose O'Neal Greenhow!. Delity Powell Kelley was a woman who fought in the Confederate Army along side her older brothers and father!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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im not sure of any websites, but most of the women involvement was nursesWww@QuestionHome@Com

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Specific women!? or just generalizations!? Women were used as nurses in large numbers for the first time!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

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i think it was something to do with molly pitcherWww@QuestionHome@Com

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