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Unsung Heroines

© Katie Anne Gustafsson

American women during the Civil War played many roles, but finding out exactly what these roles were is not an easy task. Although evidence exists in the form of diaries, this is not easy to access unless you happen to be living near one of the areas holding the manuscript, or are able to visit it. Some diaries are on-line, and from these it is possible to learn much about how women felt about the situation during the Civil War, and the lengths they were prepared to go to in order to help their men folk.

Women went to war. They dressed as men, and they enlisted. Some of them were never caught out, they lived and sometimes died, as soldiers. Others were spies. They extracted information from enemy sources and took it to their side where it helped the war effort. Some women were imprisoned for this. They smuggled, washed laundry for soldiers, and even camped with their soldier husbands becoming "daughters of the Regiment".

Those who were left at home, especially in the south, faced hardship and death as the war years lengthened. There was not enough to eat and too many to feed. Their way of life was destroyed, their men-folk missing for great periods of time. When the victory turned her face to the North, the southern women lost their homes and land, as well as their men and their way of life.

Their lives were torn apart as loved ones from both North and South, went to fight for the opposition. Sons would fight on opposing sides, father would fight against sons and the woman who loved them all would wait and wonder if she would ever see them around the supper table again. For those who had family on the enemy side, their family became lost to them for the duration of the war. Letters were not allowed to pass the enemy lines, and those who carried them, risked being hung.

They had been brought up to believe certain values were true. They were not expected to have political opinions, to have an interest in matters concerning money, to be aware of current affairs - that was the man's world, and yet when the men went to war, the women were expected to pick up the household reins and provide for her household, no matter where it belonged on the social scale, and she did.

The men's role within the Civil War was important, indeed crucial, for it could be argued that without the men, there would have been no Civil War! However, the biggest change in society came for the women as they learned to become active in their own lives and not wait for the men to sort their problems.

The copyright of the article Unsung Heroines in Women's History is owned by Wendy J. Dunn. Permission to republish Unsung Heroines in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.