women's role in the civil war essay

The Role of Women in the Civil War Essay

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The role of women began shifting toward a more socially and politically active one during the nineteenth century. However, the Civil War was a major turning point for women, as they were allowed into new professions and helped the front from both sides of the conflict (Shi, 608). A significant impact was made by women in the field of medicine, as thousands worked directly on the battlefields. Such assistance led to the creation of the American Red Cross and the development of nursing as a profession in general (Shi, 609). The pursuit of social equality became a realistic prospect as the Civil War revealed its possibility and feasibility. Unlike previous armed conflicts, the Civil War was more disrupting for the established way of living, which gave women a chance for greater involvement in it. An active position in life later translated into numerous women’s rights movements that sparked across the United States.

It is apparent that women’s voices became more prominent during the Civil War. From the letters by Mary Abigail Dodge, who posed as Gail Hamilton, Shi and Mayer (2019) highlight how women served as motivational leaders who encouraged”sacrifice of personal comfort for the war” and its causes (p. 409). The selflessness of such acts was praised by Dodge, although her writings remained under a gender-neutral pseudonym. In conclusion, the role of women in the Civil War was so significant that it enabled them to pursue ambitious goals and become less hindered by the societal bonds of that time.

Shi, D. E. (2018). America: A narrative history (11 th ed.). New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

Shi, D. E., & Mayer, H. A. (2019). For the record: A documentary history (7 th ed.). New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

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Women in the Civil War

By: History.com Editors

Updated: March 9, 2022 | Original: February 5, 2010

In many ways, the coming of the Civil War challenged the ideology of Victorian domesticity that had defined the lives of men and women in the antebellum era. In the North and in the South, the war forced women into public life in ways they could scarcely have imagined a generation before.

In the years before the Civil War , the lives of American women were shaped by a set of ideals that historians call “the Cult of True Womanhood.” As men’s work moved away from the home and into shops, offices and factories, the household became a new kind of place: a private, feminized domestic sphere, a “haven in a heartless world.” “True women” devoted their lives to creating a clean, comfortable, nurturing home for their husbands and children.

Did you know? More than 400 women disguised themselves as men and fought in the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War.

During the Civil War, however, American women turned their attention to the world outside the home. Thousands of women in the North and South joined volunteer brigades and signed up to work as nurses. It was the first time in American history that women played a significant role in a war effort. By the end of the war, these experiences had expanded many Americans’ definitions of “true womanhood.”

Fighting for the Union

With the outbreak of war in 1861, women and men alike eagerly volunteered to fight for the cause. In the Northern states, women organized ladies’ aid societies to supply the Union troops with everything they needed, from food (they baked and canned and planted fruit and vegetable gardens for the soldiers) to clothing (they sewed and laundered uniforms, knitted socks and gloves, mended blankets and embroidered quilts and pillowcases) to cash (they organized door-to-door fundraising campaigns, county fairs and performances of all kinds to raise money for medical supplies and other necessities).

But many women wanted to take a more active role in the war effort. Inspired by the work of Florence Nightingale and her fellow nurses in the Crimean War , they tried to find a way to work on the front lines, caring for sick and injured soldiers and keeping the rest of the Union troops healthy and safe.

In June 1861, they succeeded: The federal government agreed to create “a preventive hygienic and sanitary service for the benefit of the army” called the United States Sanitary Commission. The Sanitary Commission’s primary objective was to combat preventable diseases and infections by improving conditions (particularly “bad cookery” and bad hygiene) in army camps and hospitals. It also worked to provide relief to sick and wounded soldiers. By war’s end, the Sanitary Commission had provided almost $15 million in supplies—the vast majority of which had been collected by women—to the Union Army.

Nearly 20,000 women worked more directly for the Union war effort. Working-class white women and free and enslaved African American women worked as laundresses, cooks and “matrons,” and some 3,000 middle-class white women worked as nurses. The activist Dorothea Dix , the superintendent of Army nurses, put out a call for responsible, maternal volunteers who would not distract the troops or behave in unseemly or unfeminine ways: Dix insisted that her nurses be “past 30 years of age, healthy, plain almost to repulsion in dress and devoid of personal attractions.” (One of the most famous of these Union nurses was the writer Louisa May Alcott .)

Army nurses traveled from hospital to hospital, providing “humane and efficient care for wounded, sick and dying soldiers.” They also acted as mothers and housekeepers—“havens in a heartless world”—for the soldiers under their care.

Women of the Confederacy

White women in the South threw themselves into the war effort with the same zeal as their Northern counterparts. The Confederacy had less money and fewer resources than did the Union, however, so they did much of their work on their own or through local auxiliaries and relief societies. They, too, cooked and sewed for their boys. They provided uniforms, blankets, sandbags and 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 homes.

Many Southern women, especially wealthy ones, relied on slaves for everything and had never had to do much work. However, even they were forced by the exigencies of wartime to expand their definitions of “proper” female behavior.

Enslaved Women and Freedwomen

Enslaved women were, of course, not free to contribute to the Union cause. Moreover, they had never had the luxury of “true womanhood” to begin with.

The Civil War promised freedom, but it also added to these women’s burdens. In addition to their own plantation and household labor, many enslaved women had to do the work of their husbands and partners too: The Confederate Army frequently recruited enslaved men, and slaveowners fleeing from Union troops often took their valuable male enslaved workers, but not women and children, with them. (Working-class white women had a similar experience: While their husbands, fathers and brothers fought in the Army, they were left to provide for their families on their own.)

A Women’s Proper Place?

During the Civil War, women especially faced a host of new duties and responsibilities. For the most part, these new roles applied the ideals of Victorian domesticity to “useful and patriotic ends.” However, these wartime contributions did help expand many women’s ideas about what their “proper place” should be.

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The Role of Women in the Civil War

How it works

The bloodiest conflict in history of North America was not between other countries, like one would might imagine, it was in fact the economics of slavery and political control of that system that was central to the clash between the North and Southern states. The Northern states was committed to ending the practice of slavery. However, the Southern states wished to introduce slavery into the western territories. During this time of conflict over the issue of slavery, Abraham Lincoln won the election of 1860, carried by the free states of the Northeast and Northwest.

Gradually, the Southern states started to believe they had no influence which drove them to make a political decision leading to war. The Civil War lasted between 1861 to 1865. Throughout this time, there were about three million men who fought as soldiers. During this time American women were shaped by a set of ideals called “The Cult of True Womanhood,” but as men left home to fight the war, women who worked as housewives moved to working in shops and factories. Most importantly, American women contributed to the war effort by serving as nurses, spies, and their disguise as soldiers.

When the war broke out, men left their previous jobs to become soldiers and women had to leave their duties as mothers to fill the jobs the men left behind. However, some women disguised themselves as soldiers. While in disguise, they “chopped off their hair, traded in their dresses for guns and fought for the side they believed in.” Instead of enduring the separation of their husbands, women wanted to accompany their family members. Even women who were pregnant during that time fought in the war next to their husbands.

One woman who stood out among the hundreds of women soldiers disguised as men was Sarah Rosetta Wakeman. Unlike the other women soldiers, she deliberately wrote letters to home and her letters were later published. In these letters, Wakeman described what it was like to undertake the role of a soldier in such a violet and chaotic environment. Before the Civil War, Wakeman was the oldest out of nine children in an impoverished farm. However, in the year 1862, Wakeman decided to venture out disguised as a man for many reasons. She did not have any plans of getting married nor as a “domestic” was she much help to her poor family. Most importantly, her father was in debt. She first started off as a boatman doing labor. However, on August 30, 1962, she was enlisted under the name Lyons Wakeman and departed to Washington that October. After serving as a provost and guard in Washington, she was sent to Louisiana to take part in the Red River Campaign. Forced to walk hundreds of miles without food or water, “she persevered while her comrades slowly succumbed to death.” On April 9, 1864, Wakeman fired round after round on Pleasant Hill as she advanced to the Confederates. As a result, she beat them back six times. Although Wakeman was just one out of many women who participated during the Civil War, she represented a huge amount of woman who left their own homes to fight for what they believed in. Slowly, this big leap for women kind was the beginning of women accomplishments.

Another woman who fought in the war as an American soldier was Frances Louisa Clayton. She disguised herself as a man and fought for the Union Army. Unlike Wakemans, Clayton joined and enlisted as a regiment under the name Jack Williams to fight side by side with her husband. The battles she fought were in the Battle of Shiloh and the Battle of Stone River where she lost her husband. Even when her husband was killed during a charge, Clayton stepped over her husband’s dead body and continued to fight. It wasn’t until a bit later after her husband’s death that she got discharged. Although Clayton’s reason to join the army as a disguised man was not like Wakemans’, she persevered through the violent and chaotic setting just to be a part of the war. Due to her figure described as “tall and masculine-looking” and her part in “soldierly past-times such as drinking, smoking, or chewing tobacco” she was not discovered as a woman. , Clayton’s contribution to the war proved that women are able to do what men can do setting them away from the stereotypical “Cult of Domesticity”.

Not only did women contribute to the war as soldiers, they also worked as spies for both the Confederate or Union armies. During this time, women were perfect for the roles of spies because they were viewed as not threatening due to their attractiveness. In addition, men did not expect women to be this risky or take on this kind of job. Many women spies would usually gather valuable military information by “flirting with male soldiers at parties, dinners or other social events.” Other females were said to be smuggling supplies, ammunitions, and medicine across enemy lines by “hiding them underneath their large hoop skirts.” Despite the fact that these females would get caught and be reprimanded, they still took risks to gather information and fight for their beliefs.

One of the major spies for the Union army was Harriet Tubman. As a former slave, she had to work on the plantation. Refusing to work on the plantations, Tubman determined to escape the reality of a slave and run away. Before being recruited by the Union officers to be one of the spies in South Carolina, she volunteered for the Union as a cook and a nurse. Ever since, she became the “first woman in the country’s history to lead a military expedition” when she helped Col. Montgomery make a plan to raid and free the slaves from rice plantations. In addition, she led several slaves up rivers in gunboats, through mine fields, and along the waterway. When they reached the shore, they “destroyed a Confederate supply depot and freed more than 750 slaves”. Being a slave herself, she knew what it was like to be controlled and stuck. As a result, she fought by the Union side and ended up freeing more slaves than anyone has ever freed. Although she was a female, much more a former slave, she was not scared to get caught. Instead, Tubman fought and did what she believed in. By destroying some of the Confederates supplies, Tubman positively strengthened the success of the Union.

Another Union spy was Pauline Cushman. Although Cushman had the same goal as Harriet Tubman, she came from an absolutely different background. Cushman was a struggling actress who was “dared by Confederate officers to interrupt a show to toast Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy” . Of her own free will, she contacted the Union Army’s local provost marshal and asked to perform the toast as a way to insert herself in the Confederates to work as a federal intelligence operative. Ever since, she was brought to Nashville where she began to work with the Union Army. While working for them, she “gathered information about the enemy’s operations, identified Confederate spies, and served as a federal courier” . Her contribution has helped the Union figure out which Confederate spies were among the Union Army and this made an impact on the success of the Union Army. Without Cushman, we would have one less person fighting for the success of our country and what it is today.

Although these famous figures were known for their effort in contributing to the Union spies, there are also famous female Confederate spies that impacted the war. Rose O’Neal Greenhow was a very famous female spy working for the Confederate Army. She was born into a slave-holding family and married to a man with the name of Robert Greenhow. Though she became a widow later on in her life, it is said it is probably “fortunate, too – for the Confederacy – as she thereby had a much freer hand with the mighty and near-mighty in Washington officialdom.” With the coming of session, Greenhow became the head of the spies in Washington and sent information to President Davis in Richmond. Another accomplishment was when she alerted the Confederates to the “forward march of the Federals leading to their disastrous defeat at Manassas.” With the benefaction of having Greenhow as a spy for the Confederates, the Confederate Army was able to attain additional secret information that led to the Confederate’s win at the Bull Run Battle.

As mentioned before, women were put under different circumstances since the start of the Civil War. Another major contribution besides serving as soldiers and working as spies were women who worked as nurses. Working as nurses was a gruesome job for women because of the casualties of the war. Civil War nurses had to “clean and bandage wounds, feed soldiers, dispense medications and assist surgeons during operations and medical procedures.” Due to the help of nurses, a large number of soldiers were saved.

One group of nurses called “Indian Women Nurses” were contributing as much as they could to the casualties of the war. Just like any other women during the Civil War, it had provided women the opportunity to expand their traditional domestic life. As men were leaving to fight the war, “women devised ways both to help the war cause and to survive financially” . Specifically, Indiana Nurses used their domestic skills to make clothing and collect supplies, they conducted bazaars and organized benefits to raise funds, and they helped needy families of soldiers by supplying them with food and winter fuel. Most importantly, they helped stricken soldiers after hearing about widespread diseases and the chaos of the battles. These nurses typically looked up to Florence Nightingale who “led corps of women nurses on the battlefields of the Crimean War” . Along with their involvement in the Civil war, they also became accomplished and persevered as nurses later on. It is said that after an appeal in churches and in the Indianapolis, “Daily Journal for woman to help the 33rd regiment, five Indianapolis women found their way to the almost inaccessible village of Crab Orchard” . These Indian women nurses didn’t just want to contribute to the war, but they also wanted to continue being nurses and spreading help around the world. Although they started as housewives, they were able to expand due to their experience and effort in the Civil War.

One person who influenced the field of nursing during the Civil War was Dorothea Dix. Although little is known about her childhood, it is said that Dix was born in Hampden, Maine in 1802. She attended school in Boston and tutored children. However, because of an illness she decided to spend time in Europe. While traveling overseas, she “met a group of reformers interested in changing the way the mentally ill were cared for” . When she returned to the United States, she was set out to tour mental hospitals. When the Civil War started, she dedicated herself to the Union cause. Dix was named as the “Superintendent of Nurses”. She was given full “power to appoint army nurses in the hospitals and cheerfully gave her labor and her fortune to the cause” . With her help of rallying up nurses, the nurses were able to help in hospitals where casualties were high in numbers. Also, her appointment of nurses was found on “every battlefield from Bull Run to Appomattox” . Because the nurses were carried out in different stations and helping soldiers who were hurt, they lessened the number of people that could have died due to bleeding out. However, with Dorothea Dix’s help in training and appointing nurses, she had contributed to the Union cause and built up the occupation of nurses today.

Another impactful woman during the time of the Civil War is Florence Nightingale. Nightingale was born in Florence, Italy to a British family. Since she was younger, Nightingale preferred not to be in the center of attention. However, she wrote “I think I am got something more good-nature and complying” meaning she wants to do something great to please her mother who love being involved in social climbing. When she was younger, she was interested in philanthropy and by the age of sixteen, she wanted to become a nurse. Nightingale felt as if “nursing was calling her” . The year of 1853, the Crimean War broke out and at that time there were no nurses stationed at the hospitals, but in 1854, the Secretary of War asked her to organize corps of nurses to tend the sick and fallen soldiers in Crimea. Later in life, she was frequently consulted to manage field hospitals during the Civil War. In one of Walt Whitmans’ letter to his mother from the hospital camps of the Civil War, he claimed “we find the most poetic and truthful expression of the sentiment peculiar to army nursing…it was this wonderous mingling of devotion and suffering observed among the British soldiers and sailors which brought out the finest qualities of heart, will, and mind in Florence Nightingale” . Although Florence Nightingale was not at the Civil War field, she was the foundation in which all nurses looked up to and came for advice. Without her, nursing wouldn’t be what it is today.

In conclusion, there are many roles women have played during the Civil War. Since men were drafted to go fight,women had to move from the “Cult of Domestic” to taking over job men have left. Some strived even more and participated in the war itself. For example, many women changed their appearance to be disguised as soldiers in war, some took risks and became undercover spies, and others became nurse to take care of the casualties of war. Regardless of what women chose to do, they have all contributed to the Civil War and made an impact on today’s world.

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Women during the Civil War

Written by: catherine clinton, university of texas, san antonio, by the end of this section, you will:.

• Explain the effects of government policy during Reconstruction on society from 1865 to 1877

Suggested Sequencing

Use this Narrative alongside the Mary Chesnut’s War Narrative to allow students to analyze and compare women’s experiences during the Civil War.

Whether black or white, Northern or Southern, rich or poor, women confronted daunting obstacles during the Civil War era. The impulse to overthrow societal constraints and the struggle for equal opportunity were critical concerns for many women in the 1860s.

The abolitionist movement flourished alongside female activism, and during the decades leading up to the Civil War, women increasingly advocated for women’s rights, particularly suffrage. The vote was then a right granted at the state level; New Jersey had briefly allowed some women to vote (who satisfied the same property-ownership qualifications as men), but generally, momentum for suffrage had been lost after the American Revolution. It revived during the 1850s, when many reformers, such as Susan B. Anthony, began their suffrage work after becoming engaged in the temperance, abolitionist, and moral reform movements of the 1830s and 1840s. In 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton initiated a national women’s rights movement in Seneca Falls, New York, after witnessing male resistance to women’s participation in abolitionism at the World Antislavery Convention in London in 1840. Yet women’s rights campaigns were intertwined with abolitionism. Antislavery activist Angelina Grimke argued that slaves might be emancipated while women were denied equal status, but women could never truly be free until slavery was abolished, suggesting a domino effect.

Pictured are two of the leading suffragists of the nineteenth century, Elizabeth Cady Stanton (left) and Susan B. Anthony (right).

When war was declared in spring 1861, women were prepared to launch into action to contribute to the war effort. In the South, they stitched sashes and prepared cockades for their soldiers marching off to defend the newly established Confederacy. In the North, medical pioneers and sisters Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell called a meeting of women in Manhattan to coordinate efforts for soldiers’ aid. On April 29, 1861, between 2,000 and 3,000 responded to the call. They trained nurses for work in the field and established a network of soldiers’ aid societies. The Women’s Central Relief Association’s board of 12 overseers included six women, which was unconventionally egalitarian for the era.

Nurses not only cared for soldiers in wards but some undertook tours of duty on the battlefield. Mary Anne Bickerdyke, or “Mother” Bickerdyke, as she was affectionately known to the troops, attended to the Union wounded on 19 different battle sites. She spent most of her time at the Union’s military hospital in Cairo, Illinois. Even more innovative, female nurses and matrons staffed the war department’s mobile “floating hospitals,” set up near battle sites to rescue the wounded. Mary Edwards Walker was an abolitionist and surgeon who fought for an army appointment and eventually served. She was given the Medal of Honor by President Andrew Johnson and remains the only female recipient of the award to this day. Clara Barton was perhaps the best-known nurse of the Civil War generation and later founded the American Red Cross in 1881.

Before the war, Dorothea Dix travelled the world to investigate treatment of the mentally ill, and she campaigned from Maine to Louisiana to try to build humane facilities to care for those diagnosed with insanity. Dix helped establish the Harrisburg State Hospital in Pennsylvania, one of America’s first asylums, in 1851. During the war, she worked independently of the federal army, organizing wartime care of soldiers in the state of Massachusetts. Through her personal appeals, thousands of dollars were donated to supply Massachusetts soldiers with food and medicine. Dix was eventually appointed Superintendent of Army Nurses and provided “care, succor [assistance] and relief” to hundreds of Union soldiers.

More than 3,000 women served as military nurses, the majority in the North. Louisa May Alcott’s Hospital Sketches depicted a nurse’s life, describing times when “legless, armless occupants entering my ward admonished me that I was there to work, not to wonder or weep.” Confederate women organized private facilities; Sally Tompkins founded a hospital in Richmond and was given the rank of captain by Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Phoebe Pember, a former Charleston socialite working in a Confederate hospital, wrote of rats that “ate all the poultices applied during the night to the sick, and dragged away the pads stuffed with bran from under the arms and legs of the wounded.”

A new generation of women leaders began to emerge. With the help of the U.S. Christian Commission, Annie Wittenmyer developed a “dietary kitchen system” in which patients were each given a diet tailored to their medical condition. This system is still in use in hospitals today. Because three of every five soldiers who died in uniform succumbed to disease unrelated to combat or wounds, superior care was important to keeping the ranks full. None other than Ulysses S. Grant said of Wittenmyer that “no soldier on the firing line gave more heroic service than she did.”

An intrepid cadre of women embarked on even more dangerous but heroic journeys. A small group served as spies, including the infamous Washington, DC, society widow Rose Greenhow, who drowned while trying to evade the blockade off the coast of North Carolina, smuggling gold and documents back into the Confederacy from her mission in Europe. Young women often worked as saboteurs and scouts during military operations in occupied territories.

Rose Greenhow, pictured here with her daughter in a Washington, DC, prison in 1862, was part of a small group of female Confederate spies.

Scores of women disguised themselves as male soldiers to serve in combat. Two such women were Irish immigrants Jennie Hodges and Rosetta Wakeman. Both fought in the 1864 Red River Campaign in Louisiana. Hodges was born female but lived as a male most of her adult life, enlisting as Albert Cashier. Wakeman enlisted in the 153rd New York volunteers as Private Edwin Wakeman. Wakeman wrote home to her family about her experience on the battlefield: “I was not in the first day’s fight but the next day I had to face the enemy bullets with my regiment. I was under fire about four hours and laid on the field of battle all night. There was three wounded in my Co. and one killed.”

In 1863, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony organized the Women’s Loyal National League, the first national women’s political organization, which advocated an amendment to the Constitution abolishing slavery that was more expansive than Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (the League shifted its focus to women’s suffrage after the war). The abolition of slavery became a top priority for northern women activists, who poured their talent and energy into political organizing. Most wanted to secure freedom for blacks before women’s suffrage, but black women were even more outspoken. At their first national convention, African American activist Frances Ellen Watkins Harper said, “You white women speak here of rights. I speak of wrongs.” Harper and other free black women in the North advocated on behalf of enslaved southern women, noting that more than half the black population of four million was still in bondage. Black women joined white women in the fight to end slavery and pushed for autonomy for all women, not just white women. Many explicitly raised awareness about the connection between discrimination on the basis of race and of sex.

Harriet Tubman continued her dangerous career behind enemy lines. She had served as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, helping runaway slaves escape to freedom, and then began to work with the Union army as a nurse, scout, and spy in occupied South Carolina. Self-liberated ex-slave Susie King Taylor moved into Union-occupied territory along the South Carolina and Georgia coasts, where she served as a nurse and also as a teacher for illiterate black Union soldiers serving near her Sea Island encampment.

Harriet Tubman, photographed here soon after the end of the Civil War, helped the Union army during the Civil War and was a conductor on the Underground Railroad.

Women of color had a special stake in the struggle, rightly perceiving the Civil War as a battle for black liberation. With the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, women within the Loyal League, which pledged to win equal rights within the scope of the U.S. Constitution, could claim victory. With the Fourteenth Amendment, however, the situation became critical: this amendment specified “due process” and “equal protection,” essential foundations upon which rights might be constructed. But Section Two of the amendment specified rights were to be accorded to “the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States.” The question of who should be granted these rights produced a split within the movement, and Susan B. Anthony, for one, challenged the notion that only men could vote.

In the wake of Southern surrender and the enormous task of binding the nation’s wounds and rebuilding the country, women put their shoulders to the wheel. Yet those who had taken over men’s positions during wartime in the U.S. Treasury Department, for example, and in the munitions factories in Confederate Richmond were encouraged to retire and, in some cases, were even expelled. Women suffered the consequences of war because they lost their fathers, sons, and husbands and thus their primary means of financial support. The provision for female pensioners and protective labor legislation helped to shape late nineteenth-century reform and federal reform. The legacy of the Civil War put an indelible stamp on the women’s rights movements, as women continued the long struggle for women’s suffrage. They were successful in winning the right to vote in several westerns states while working for a constitutional amendment.

Review Questions

1. During the Civil War, women who took part in a variety of reform movements before the war made which of the following their primary goal?

• Women’s suffrage
• The right of women to serve as doctors
• The abolition of slavery
• The right of former slaves to serve in the Union Army

2. Women such as “Mother” Bickerdyke served in the war mainly as

• volunteers on the home front, writing letters of encouragement to wounded soldiers
• workers in factories, replacing men as they were drafted into the army
• nurses on the frontlines
• women disguised as men fighting on the frontlines

3. Primarily known for her work in reforming the treatment of the mentally ill, Dorothea Dix served during the Civil War as

• founder of the U.S. Christian Commission
• superintendent of Army Nurses
• founder of the Woman’s Loyal National League
• a spy for the Union Army

4. When Union General Ulysses S. Grant stated that “no soldier on the firing line gave more heroic service than she did,” he was speaking of

• Sarah Grimké
• Louisa May Alcott
• Clara Barton
• Annie Wittenmyer

5. During the Civil War, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony campaigned for an amendment to the Constitution that would

• abolish slavery
• grant women the right to vote
• grant equal rights to all persons regardless of their sex
• grant freed slaves the right to vote

6. During the war, Harriet Tubman and Rose Greenhow both worked as

7. Most southern women who had the time to volunteer for the Confederate cause served as

• nurses and seamstresses
• scouts and saboteurs
• blockade runners

Free Response Questions

• Describe the reasons for formation of the Women’s Loyal National League.
• Explain the role African American women played in the Civil War.

AP Practice Questions

“TO THE WOMEN OF THE REPUBLIC: We ask you to sign and circulate this petition for the ENTIRE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY. We have now ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND signatures, but we want a MILLION before Congress adjourns. Remember the President’s Proclamation reaches only the Slaves of Rebels. The jails of LOYAL Kentucky are to-day crammed’ with Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama slaves, advertised to be sold for their jail fees According to LAW,’ precisely as before the war!!! While slavery exists ANYWHERE there can be freedom NOWHERE. THERE MUST BE A LAW ABOLISHING SLAVERY. We have undertaken to canvass the Nation for freedom. Women, you cannot vote or fight for your country. Your only way to be a power in the Government is through the exercise of this one, sacred, Constitutional RIGHT OF PETITION;’ and we ask you to use it now to the utmost. Go to the rich, the poor, the high, the low, the soldier, the civilian, the white, the black gather up the names of all who hate slavery all who love LIBERTY, and would have it the LAW of the land and lay them at the feet of Congress, your silent but potent vote for human freedom guarded by the law. . . . E. CADY STANTON President. SUSAN B. ANTHONY, Secretary W.L.N. League”

Women’s Loyal National League, “To the Women of the Republic,” January 25, 1864

1. The phrase, “remember the President’s Proclamation reaches only the Slaves of Rebels,” refers to

• the Proclamation of Rights and Grievances
• the Olive Branch Petition
• the Emancipation Proclamation
• Field Order No. 15

2. The ideas expressed in the excerpt were a continuation of which philosophy?

• The ideals in the U.S. Constitution
• The “perfectionist” ideals of the Second Great Awakening
• The philosophy expressed by the Stamp Act Congress
• The philosophy of compromise expressed by Henry Clay

Primary Sources

Brumgardt, John, ed. Civil War Nurse: The Diary and Letters of Hannah Ropes . Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee Press, 1980.

Cady Stanton, Elizabeth, and Susan B. Anthony. “To the Women of the Republic.” January 25, 1864. https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/slavery/experience/gender/docs2.html

“Declaration of Sentiments, Seneca Falls, 1848.” https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/mod/senecafalls.asp

“Fifteenth Amendment. Black Suffrage.” http://www.ushistory.org/documents/amendments.htm#amend15

“Fourteenth Amendment. Civil Rights.” http://www.ushistory.org/documents/amendments.htm#amend14

“Thirteenth Amendment. Abolition of Slavery.” http://www.ushistory.org/documents/amendments.htm#amend13

Suggested Resources

Campbell, Edward, and Kym Rice. A Woman’s War: Southern Women, Civil War, and the Confederate Legacy . Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1997.

Chesnut, Mary Boykin. Mary Chesnut’s Diary , edited by Catherine Clinton. New York: Penguin, 2011.

Clinton, Catherine. The Other Civil War . New York: Hill and Wang, 1999.

Giesberg, Judith. Civil War Sisterhood . Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2006.

King Taylor, Susie. Reminiscences of My Life in Camp , edited by Catherine Clinton. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2006.

Massey, Mary Elizabeth. Women in the Civil War . Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1994.

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Nurses, Activists, Soldiers, Spies: Women’s Roles During the Civil War

There were many women playing important roles in  the Civil War , including nurses, spies, soldiers, abolitionists, civil rights advocates and promoters of women’s suffrage. Most women were engaged in supplying the troops with food, clothing, medical supplies, and even money through fundraising. Others, following in the footsteps of Florence Nightingale who pioneered the institution of professional nursing in the Crimean War, took to directly caring for the wounded, treating the sick and ensuring the health of the troops. Read more about  Civil War Nurses .

WOMEN SOLDIERS IN THE CIVIL WAR

There were over 400 documented cases of women who fought as soldiers in the civil war. Disguised as men, they fought alongside others for their cause. Read our featured article below on  Women Soldiers in the Civil War

Some of the more notable women in the Civil War include:

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE:

Harriet Beecher Stowe was a passionate abolitionist, and her book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin , made her an international celebrity, and is considered one of the  causes of the civil war . Learn more about  Harriet Beecher Stowe

HARRIET TUBMAN:

Harriet Tubman was a runaway slave who became a conductor in the underground railroad. Learn more about  Harriet Tubman

MARY TODD LINCOLN:

Mary Todd Lincoln, wife of Abraham Lincoln, was the First Lady during the Civil War and was a prominent figure of her era. Read more about  Mary Todd Lincoln

LUCRETIA MOTT:

Lucretia Mott was an abolitionist as well as a women’s rights activist. She was elected the first president of the American Equal Rights Association, an organization dedicated to universal suffrage. Read more about  Lucretia Mott

CLARA BARTON:

Clara Barton was a civil war nurse who began her career at the Battle of Bull Run, after which she established an agency to distribute supplies to soldiers. Often working behind the lines, she aided wounded soldiers on both sides. After the war, she established the American Red Cross. Read more about  Clara Barton

ROSE O’ NEAL GREENHOW:

Rose O’ Neal Greenhow (aka Wild Rose) was a leader in Washington society. A dedicated secessionist, she became one of the most renowned spies in the Civil War and is credited with helping the Confederacy win  The First Battle Of Bull Run .

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT:

Louisa May Alcott is best known as the author of  Little Women , but less known is the fact that she served as a volunteer nurse during the civil war. Read more about  Louisa May Alcott

SUSAN B. ANTHONY:

Susan B. Anthony was a key figure in the women’s rights movement, more specifically the women’s suffrage movement. She also promoted prohibition of alcohol and was the co-founder of the first Women’s Temperance Movement. Read more about  Susan B. Anthony

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON:

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an abolitionist and an early leader in the woman’s movement, especially the right of women to vote (women’s suffrage). Her declaration of sentiments at the Seneca Falls Convention brought the suffrage movement to national prominence. Read more about Elizabeth Cady Stanton .

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The Civil War: Women and the Homefront

• Primary Sources Online
• Getting Started

Primary Source Databases

Diaries and letters online, microfilm collections.

• Civil War Women: A-F
• Civil War Women: G-N
• Civil War Women: P-Y
• African American Women & Slavery
• American Civil War: Letters and Diaries This link opens in a new window Search full text diaries, letters and memoirs from the Civil War Period written by generals, slaves, landowners, farmers, seaman, wives, and spies

Brings together collections of diaries, correspondence and papers of families grouped for their principal association with North Carolina, spanning the years 1780-1979. 

• ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times This link opens in a new window Search for news articles from the New York Times from 1851-2019
• Everyday Life and Women in America c.1800-1920 This link opens in a new window Searches primary documents detailing the social & cultural forces that shaped the lives of women and men in America from 1800 to 1920

Digitized Materials from Duke University

Rose O'Neal Greenhow Papers, 1861-1864 Letters from Greenhow, a Confederate spy, to Jefferson Davis, Alexander Boteler, and others, regarding war activities. Also several newspaper articles describing her imprisonment in 1861 and her death in 1864. Image of Greenhow at right from My Imprisonment and the First Year of Abolition Rule At Washington , by Rose Greenhow. London: Richard Bentley, 1863.

Sarah E. Thompson Papers, 1859-1898 The materials in this collection center around the murder of Thompson's husband, her intelligence work for the Union army which led to the defeat of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan, and her subsequent post-war struggles against poverty, largely as a single mother.

Hannah Valentine, Lethe Jackson, and Vilet Lester Letters These letters provide a rare firsthand glimpse into the lives of enslaved African American women and the relationships they had with their owners.

Alice Williamson Diary, 1864 Transcription and scanned image from diary of a 16 year old rebel girl living in Gallatin, Tennessee during Union occupation of the area.

Digitized Materials from Other Institutions

Documenting the american south.

Documenting the American South (DocSouth), a digital publishing initiative sponsored by the University Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, provides access to digitized primary materials that offer Southern perspectives on American history and culture. It supplies teachers, students, and researchers at every educational level with a wide array of titles they can use for reference, studying, teaching, and research. Some sections of interest include:

• First Person Narratives of the American South
• North American Slave Narratives
• The Southern Homefront, 1861-1865

Valley of the Shadow Project

The Valley of the Shadow is a digital archive of primary sources that document the lives of people in Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania, during the era of the American Civil War. The Valley Project is a part of the Virginia Center for Digital History at the University of Virginia.

Rachel Cormany Diary, June 14-July 6, 1863 An excerpt of this Franklin County, PA., woman's diary describing the town of Chambersburg during the Gettysburg campaign. Taken from The Cormany Diaries: A Northern Family in the Civil War , James C. Mohr, editor, Richard E. Winslow, III, assistant editor, (Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1982), pp. 328-341.

Nancy Emerson Diary, 1862 Memoranda of events and thoughts of woman living in Augusta County, Virginia. Transcription and scanned images of the original manuscript diary held in the Alderman Library at the University of Virginia.

Civil War Reminiscences by Catharine Hunsecker Transcription of a narrative which gives some general information about Hunsecker's life, but mainly focuses on the events of the Civil War and the effect it had on her community in Franklin County, PA.

Memoir of Alansa Rounds Sterrett, c.1859-1865 Transcription of original memoir housed in the Augusta County Historical Society. Alansa Rounds Sterrett was Jedediah Hotchkiss' niece and a teacher at Loch Willow Academy during the Civil War. A Northerner, Alansa Rounds married Franklin F. Sterrett, a friend of Hotchkiss' and a Confederate cavalry officer.

Other Civil War Diaries & Letters Online

Carrie Berry Diary August 1, 1864-January 4, 1865 Passages from the diary of a 10 yr. old Atlanta girl describe the immediate effects of the War on her and her family. Transcription of original diary provided by the Atlanta History Center .

Sallie Seeper Scott Letter, April 15, 1865 Transcription of a love letter from Sallie Seeper Scott of "Lower Chanceford" (York Co., PA), to Robert Bennett, Chief Carpenter Shop in Washington, D.C. Original held in the Special Collections Department of the University Libraries at Virginia Tech. Part of their on-line collection of Civil War Love Letters .

10th South Carolina Ladies Auxiliary This is a website for Civil War reenactors that contains a wealth of primary source information about women during the war. Site includes links to several WPA memoirs of South Carolina women during the war, detailed information about fashion and fabrics of the times, and a bibliography of suggested readings. The website is under construction but an old version can be found through Internet Archive .

The Ladies Union Aid Society of St. Louis Produced by a women's Civil War reenacting group, this site provides a history of the LUAS which contains excerpts from original documents related to the creation and work of the Society. Includes references to specific women such as Anna Clapp and Jesse Freement, but also illustrates the work of the many unnamed women who aided soldiers. Also has a bibliography for further reading.

• Southern Women and Their Families in the 19th Century (SW&TF) Link to WorldCat record of worldwide holdings of this microfilm collection. Duke materials are in Series H.

Microfilm may not be the most popular choice for modern researchers, however a significant amount of material related to women and the civil war from Duke and elsewhere has been compiled in microfilm collections that are available at many institutions. If your local library does not have these resources, they may be able to borrow them via Interlibrary Loan. The list of manuscript collections at Duke is annotated to indicate which collections have been microfilmed.

• SW&TF: Series A Guides to Series A: Holdings of the Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• SW&TF: Series B, C, E & F Guides to Series B: Holdings of The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Library; Series C: Holdings of the College of William & Mary; Series E: Holdings of Louisiana State University Libraries; and Series F: Holdings of the Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin
• SW&TF: Series D Guides to Series D: Holdings of the Virginia Historical Society
• SW&TF: Series G Series G: Holdings of the University of Virginia Library
• SW&TF: Series H Guides to Series H: Holdings of Duke University
• << Previous: Getting Started
• Next: Manuscript Collections >>
• Last Updated: Mar 1, 2024 9:35 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.duke.edu/civilwarwomen

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Women Role During The Civil War

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