Essay about The Role of Women in the American Civil War

Sara Edmonds: According to Civilwarhome website, Emma Edmonds was a Canadian-born woman who is known for serving as a man with the Union Army during the American Civil War, she “was one of approximately 400 women who succeeded in enlisting in the army (either Union or Confederate) during the Civil War”

There is another woman you forgot to mention a courageous woman, Loreta Janeta Velazquez. Loreta was a Cuban born female that enlisted in the Confederate Army under the name of Harry T. Buford after she failed to convince her husband to let her enlist. During Loreta’s military profession, she gained the rank of Second Lieutenant, enlisted 236 men, fought at the Battle of Bull Run, at the siege of Fort Donelson and at the Battle of Shiloh. Moreover, after the Battle of Shiloh, Loreta became a Confederate spy, disguising herself as male and female as to the mission

When the Civil War broke out, Clara Barton organized an agency for the federal soldiers wounded distribution of relief supplies, she was a fearless nurse, delivering food and bandages. She was a hero that we need to remember even today.

Her quick wit and head strong manner would get her into trouble both with the press of the time and her husband. She did not share the same beliefs in the Civil War as her husband did, “As her husband accumulated political honors, she was absorbed with running a household and raising children. When the Civil War erupted, she went to Richmond with a "very heavy heart," believing that the South could not win the war, and she feared she might never see her Northern relatives and friends

During the early eighteen hundreds, many southerners entangled themselves and their families in the Civil War. The Civil War caused many men to turn against one another, and the war affected family life as well. “Approximately 620,000 soldiers died from combat, accident, starvation, and disease during the Civil War.” Most of the battles took place in the South, though some did take place in the North and the West. Southern politics and government changed greatly during this time with the new focus on winning the war. Women grabbed onto new opportunities opened up to them by the war. The members of the Barry / Bradford family strongly supported the Confederacy and actively involved themselves in the politics of this time as well. The Barry

Barton gave up her job at the beginning of the Civil War to join the war effort because she was upset by the suffering of wounded soldiers. At first, she wasn’t allowed to travel to the battlefield since the Union Army thought it was too dangerous and dirty for a woman, but she insisted until they gave in (Buckley and Burt 1). At the battle of Antietam, Barton stopped to attend to a wounded soldier when suddenly she felt a jerk on her sleeve. She looked down and the soldier was dead; a bullet had passed right by her. Yet, this did not stop her...

“I thank God that I can say on my death bed that I am a virtuous woman” (Belle Boyd). Isabelle Boyd was a very brave woman during the Civil War which was from 1861 to 1865 and was the bloodiest battle fought on American soil. She was born on May 4, 1844 in Martinsburg, Virginia and died on June 11, 1900 in Kilbourn, Wisconsin. Belle Boyd was very influential to the Civil War because she was a spy for the confederacy, a messenger to Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, and fought when she needed to, even if her life was threatened. Life as a spy

Many people question if women went into the war because of patriotism or because they lacked other opportunities. Women responded to the call differently depending on age, race, class, marital status, and number of children. They switch from lower-paying female jobs to higher-paying factory jobs. While patriotism influenced women,

In any war, there are people who are a part of the efforts that make it successful, but go unrecognized as a major “player” in it. The Civil War was no different and Susie (Baker) King Taylor is one of the many African-Americans that served in the “colored” regiments that helped the Union win the civil war. The fact that she was a woman makes her even more unique.

of her life at the Civil war, because she loved helping people and that what she decided to do

It’s little wonder, then some women, like many men, kept at the change for adventure by volunteering to fight when Civil War has broke out. About 250 female civil war soldier have been recognized through historical and there were probably more. They took every major battle, at the battle of Shiloh in April 1862, for example, there were about six women fought including

Born in Savannah in 1843, young Ellen Renshaw House moved with her family to Knoxville, Tennessee, shortly before the war. Two of her brothers joined the Confederate army, but the family lived in a part of the state deeply divided between Unionists and rebel sympathizers. The House family owned a few slaves, but researchers looking for new evidence on the disintegration of slavery during the war will not find much information here, because Ellen House seldom mentioned "servants" or slavery.

Ever since then women proved that they can work in a man’s workplace and do just as well. Any job that was a man’s, was a women’s as well. Women were soon “the most needed workers of all” according to Brenda Ralf Lewis. Factory workers became known as “the soldiers without guns”. If women hadn’t stepped up to the line, winning the war wouldn’t have been as easy as it was for us. Not only did the women in factories and shipyards have a big part in doing their part in the war contributions, but so did the women who were out on the field fighting alongside with their men risking their very life.

She was sent to be the first female worker in the United States Patent Office (“Founder Clara Barton”). Barton cared about people and wanted to do something for her country, so when she received the news about all of the wounded and sick soldiers in the civil war, she left her job and went to volunteer her medical services, tending to suffering soldiers (“Clara Barton”). Finally, in 1862, she received permission to transport supplies onto the battlefield. The soldiers and everyone else always gladly welcomed her (“Clara Barton (1821-1912)”). Clara Barton once stated “it has been long said that women don’t know anything about the war. I wish men didn’t either. They have always known a great deal too much about it for the good of their own kind (qt’d in “Clara Barton Biography”).” Working in the battlefield for all of those years has led her to believe that exact thing. In fact, from all of the work she did during the war, she earned the nickname: “The Angel of the Battlefield (“Clara Barton Biography”).” In July of 1863, Barton went as far as to move from her home in Hilton Head Island to Morris Island to take care of the growing amount of sick and injured soldiers in that area. Soon later is when her assistants and she identified over 22,000 soldier and she established The Bureau of Records of Missing Men of the Armies of the United States (“Clara

After four years of seemingly endless battle between a divided nation, more than 600,000 people were killed. These lives, however, were not given in vain. Had it not been for the American Civil War, abolition may not have been carried out. The nation might have remained divided. Women might have remained confined to their roles as the "homemakers." Although the Civil War was fought in hopes of preserving the nation and ridding it of slavery, another war raged on within the depths of this war--the women's war. Serving as nurses both in the hospital and on the battlefields, women came to know a whole