Patel 1 Tanvi Patel Mr.Malafronte H.

US History I / 6A 5/17/12 Women and the American Civil War Wars are an extremely important part of any countrys history. Most wars bring change, new ideas, new rulers, and new people. With all these changes, we tend to forget the old. We forget that when the men are all out fighting and bringing change, it is the women who are culturing and preserving the old. They are the ones expected to help keep the houses, the families, and the country running. The women also work hard so the men can have clothing, food, and shoes. The women are the forgotten heroes of early wars in our history, but the American Civil War set the path that led to women being able to join the army today. The Civil War changed the course of womens lives in America. This change goes on to help fuel the entire womens rights movement. The Civil War changed American history more than most people know. To understand the dramatic changes that occurred during the Civil War, it is important to understand what life was like for women before the war. Up until and even after the Civil War, women were not considered equals to men. They were only given responsibility to run the home and raise the children; the father or husbands word was final. In this society girls did not go to school as long as boys. Instead, they were sent to finishing schools to learn how to run a home, if they had the money. Otherwise they were wed off as soon as possible and became the husbands responsibility. In these homes, the women didnt get to decide anything; the husbands word was law. Sadly the women lived in this controlled world for most of our countrys early history. Right before the Civil War, women in the North began to find their voice. Education institutions were finally established for further education of girls. Then, In the middle

Patel 2 nineteenth century, American women had begun to develop a political voice. They had started the temperance and abolitionist movements that swept the nation opposition to these activities stirred up by those who considered it beyond womens concerns.1 Ironically, it was this same opposition that pushed women to realize that they needed to look at their own position in society. The women began to gather and take a stand for themselves and in 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention in Seneca Falls, New York took place, officially marking the beginning of the American Womens Movement; the spark had been lit. The fire continued to burn because in 1861, the American Civil War began. Now, responsibilities and opportunities women never had, were pushed onto them. To support their own families and their countries, women had to continue their own jobs and responsibilities and pick up those that the men had left behind. Our nation was saved by the women because without them continuing to work and feeding their families as well as the soldiers, the American economy would have collapsed and who knows what the consequences of that would have been. In the North, the main source of income was industry. New factories were up and running and that meant new jobs. Women had already been working at factories, although they were paid only half of what men were paid, it was better than nothing. When the men left for war, there were about 100,000 new factory jobs. In addition to these jobs, many women in North had to take over for their husbands with the farm work. There are no slaves in the North so the women with their young children had to do all the farm work, everything from working the fields, to tending the livestock, to taking the goods to town. It was hard work, but to survive it was necessary for the women to work hard and take responsibility for their family. Many fail to understand just how drastic these changes were. The women back then were like teenagers today. They knew a little about responsibility but not enough to be responsible for other lives. Still,

Ed. Frank McSherry, Jr., Charles G. Waugh.and Martin Greenberg, Civil War Women, (New York: Rockefeller Center, 1988), 7.

Patel 3 these women were better off than those in the South because women in the North had begun to voice their opinions and fight for their rights. For women in the South, life was even harder. Only a small percentage of people in the South had slaves. The majority had to hire people and work their own land. The crops in the South were also harder to harvest and plant, in addition to this, the extreme heat was excruciating. Women did help their husbands before the war, but working all this land on their own and being in charge, was a huge responsibility. The other large issue for women in the South was that most of the war was fought in this region. When the Union (North) soldiers came into town, they would barge into homes and steal food and sometimes steal valuables. Imagine having strange men barge into your home and take it over? Not only was it terrifying, but with the food shortage in the South, these horrible actions had the potential of killing many Southerners. This was basically the first time women had any responsibility in the South. The women blamed the entire Civil War on the men because of all the destruction. In their eyes, the men had caused the chaos and the women were keeping the order. The women in the South finally gained self-respect during the Civil War. The American Civil War finally allowed women to have jobs they had never even considered before. In the South, women began to work as clerks and as office workers for the Confederate Army. When they began these jobs, the women were only paid half of what men made but by the end of the war, pay was equal. Both the North and the South created many volunteer organizations to support their respective armies. Through these organizations, the soldiers received supplies, clothing, shoes, and food. There were two jobs that were opened up for women during the Civil War that were really new. Women were now able to be teachers and nurses. Both professions which were completely male dominated until this point. An interesting

Patel 4 fact is that The mortality rate at a hospital run by women was 5%, half of the mortality rate of hospitals run by men.2 Clearly, women excelled at nursing. The actual war also brought about new jobs and circumstances for the women. Many women chose to follow their male family members from site to site. These women would cook food, clean clothes, and help the men in any way they could. Some of these women even took part in the actual battles when necessary. There are countless stories of these women, who were called vivandieres. One such story is of Marie Tebe of Pennsylvania. She was given a medal after the Battle of Chancellorsvile for ignoring flying bullets to give water to the hot and thirsty soldiers.3 Women were also offered war related jobs, such as being spies or couriers. If the other army found these women, they would easily be arrested and imprisoned. Furthermore, women even fought for what they believed in. As many as four hundred women were known to have joined the two armies and fought for their side. The women would disguise themselves as men and create a new identity; they would fight until they died or were found. When these women were found, they were immediately discharged and sent home. There is also an unheard voice of the Civil War, the voice of the black woman. In the South the slave men were able to go fight for either side but the women had to stay at the plantations. They had no choice but to wait and see what would happen. With more men gone, the women slaves had to complete more work but because of the food shortages, they were often deprived of food. On the other hand, in the North, the free black women were speaking up. They could not go fight like the men could, but they wanted their freedom. To help the war effort, these women would start their own volunteer support organizations, work as spies or scouts, and help runaway slaves to freedom. The black women really had the least say of all the people in this time period but they still fought and helped the cause they believed in.

Ed. Mary Kupiec Cayton, Elliott J. Gorn, and Peter W. Williams, Sectional Conflict, Civil War, and Reconstruction, (Apr. 2012). 3 Jean F. Bashfeild, Women at the Front, (Washington DC: Library of Congress, 1997) 41.

Patel 5 The truly sad thing for women was that after all this progress they made during the war; they were expected to leave it all behind after the war had ended. The men were back and wanted their jobs, their authority, and respect. After leaving all responsibility of keeping homes and the country in order, the men decided to come back and treat women just as they had before they left. All government jobs had to be left by the women, but they did continue to dominate nursing and teaching. The problem was that now they were competing with each other even more for the few jobs that were left. This meant that jobs paid far less and the competition was fierce. The loss of the war ruined all the progress Southern women had made during the war. Due to the loss of the war, the Southern men had severely hurt egos. When they came back to their cities and towns, they had to feel needed and worthy. To save the men from more problems and to keep the peace the Southern women let go of their desires. This set up a huge wall for the progress of womens rights in the South. On the other hand, women in the North had developed a new sense of self-reliance and independence. These beliefs led many women to fight for radical reforms and full citizenship. It is difficult to understand how something that happened over 150 years ago can have an effect on us today, but this does not mean that there is no lasting effect. A great example of how womens progress during the Civil War affects us today is the American Red Cross. This organization, that helps people in their hardest times, would not even exist were it not for an American Civil War woman, Clara Barton. Throughout and after the war she did all she could to help. Clara Barton was a teacher and then she talked her way into being hired by the Washington D.C. Patent Office. When some battles began in Washington, she saw her ex-students wounded and with no help. She brought together a group of friends and they began to care for the men, fed them, and wrote letters. Soon her work was renowned and people began to send her money and supplies. Instead of joining the system, Barton chose to work on her own and used a lot of her own money. She didnt want to join the system because she saw it as wasteful and disorganized.

Patel 6 After the war, many people were unaccounted for, alive or dead, they were missing. To bring peace to families, Barton personally looked for any information about the missing. She published lists, and moved all through the country looking at graves and prisons. Through four years of this work, Barton indentified more than 20,000 missing men. After this, Barton traveled to Europe where she was introduced to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Clara Barton founded and built up the American chapter. This is one of the nations largest and most trusted organizations and it would have never existed had women not been able to find themselves during the American Civil War. The American Civil War set the stones for the road to womens rights. The four years the men were out fighting, the women had a chance to find themselves. They were able to see how capable and independent they could be. When the men left, they gave the women massive responsibilities and the women fulfilled them. They endured hard labor, a time of food shortages, helped provide for the men, gave aide, nursed the wounded, and brought up the next generation. Clara Barton once said that the women of the North and South had disproved the long-held opinion that women are well enough in their places kind and tender but weak and unreliable and worth nothing in an emergency. 4 The American Civil War marks the start of a new era for women.

Jean F. Bashfeild, Women at the Front, (Washington DC: Library of Congress, 1997) 56.

Patel 7 Works Cited Blashfield, Jean F. Women at the Front: Their Changing Roles in the Civil War. New York: Franklin Watts, 1997. Print. Ed. McSherry, Frank D., Charles Waugh, and Martin Harry. Greenberg. Civil War Women: American Women Shaped by Conflict in Stories by Alcott, Chopin, Welty, and Others. Little Rock, AR: August House, 1988. Print. "Sectional Conflict, Civil War, and Reconstruction." Encyclopedia of American Social History. Ed. Mary Kupiec Cayton, Elliott J. Gorn, and Peter W. Williams. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1993. Gale U.S. History In Context. Web. 27 Apr. 2012. <http://ic.galegroup.com/ic/uhic/> "Women's Roles during the Civil War, 1861-1865." DISCovering U.S. History. Online ed. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Discovering Collection. Gale. High School. Web. 9 May, 2012. <http://find.galegroup.com/srcx/infomark.do?&source=gale&srcprod=DISC&userGroup Name=s0003&prodId=DC&tabID=T001&docId=EJ2104240824&type=retrieve&content Set=GSRC&version=1.0>.