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| Frances Clayton - Union Soldier |
Throughout history, women have seldom had major roles in society beyond domestic duties. Women briefly contributed to the American Revolution as the Daughters of Liberty as well as during the Women’s March to Versailles during the French Revolution. However, as a whole, the efforts of women were minimal throughout history.
As I mentioned before, women were typically placed in the role of a housewife, nurturing her husband and the children, subject to their husband. This changed during the Civil War. With the beginning of the Civil War, women were beginning to look towards the war and away from their domestic lives. Thousands of women from both the Union and the Confederacy volunteered to work as nurses. Personally, I find it quite funny that nurses are so quickly skipped over in textbook readings or documentaries. Nurses were very important for the survival of the hundreds of thousands of men who were injured during the war. Particularly within the Northern States, women organized ladies’ aid societies where they gathered the things the Union troops would need. This included blankets, food, and clothing.
On the other hand, the Confederate women mainly contributed to the war simply through their own time. Like North’s Ladies’ Aid Societies, Confederate women cooked and sewed for Confederate troops and sometimes even worked as untrained nurses.
As a whole, in both the Confederacy and the Union, it is estimated that about 400 women actually disguised themselves as men and went to war. Some of them never even got discovered as a woman. One instance of this was in the case of Jennie Hodgers. Fighting under the alias of Albert Cashier, she was never discovered to be a woman and after the war ended she lived out the rest of her life as a man. She received a military pension and lived at a soldiers’ home in Illinois as a veteran.
Undoubtedly, men have taken the center stage of history. However, it is without a doubt that underneath accomplishments of men, women also contributed to society in ways beyond domestic life.
I really appreciated your personal insight and I agree completely that nurses in most of the content that we saw did not represent them for their actual contribution in the war. Although women were mainly restricted to roles within the household, there were some women who went above and beyond just being nurses. Perhaps one of the most influential women of the Civil War was Harriet Tubman. She not only was a nurse for the union, but as an African American woman, she was able to be a spy on the enemy lines and gather crucial information about the Confederate Army, all while liberating slaves and guiding them to freedom.
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https://www.civilwar.org/learn/biographies/harriet-tubman
I really like that your post highlights a part of history that necessarily isn't given the greatest emphasis upon during the Civil War. Your choice to show the similarities between what females added to the War Effort in both the Confederate and Union societies was very interesting as well. The most interesting point I felt you mentioned was the following, "One instance of this was in the case of Jennie Hodgers. Fighting under the alias of Albert Cashier, she was never discovered to be a woman and after the war ended she lived out the rest of her life as a man." This is one of the first instances in history I have read about early transitioning into the opposite gender. I wonder what stigma or responses she faced from er society, and how she combatted this. In addition, being an early example of a trans-man; I wonder how her family felt about her choice in context of the family norms being rather strict during this time. I thought your article covered a great topic and highlights the war being a transition time for women's rights.
ReplyDeleteYou did a great job on this post! It is really interesting how women's roles change during times of war. This has happened consistently throughout history, most prominently during World War I. When large portions of the male population left to fight in the war, women suddenly became more significant members of society. With thousands of men leaving their homes to join the military, more jobs were available to women. Women were no longer expected to stay home and tend to their children. Instead, all members of society were able to support the war effort. This seems very similar to the Civil War. During times of war, a nation becomes very desperate for manpower. Women became nurses and helped save hundreds of lives. I think Jennie Hodgers's story is really interesting. She did more than support the war, she was determined to fight in it. This really shows how brave and how dedicated she was.
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