Women During The Civil War
The American Civil War began on April 12th in 1861 in Fort Sumter, South Carolina. The war created quite a few challenges for everyone. The women dealt with more than men. The hardest thing that they had to deal with was the death of their loved ones. Women were not treated like they were equal to men. It was hard to do the things that they did do. Women were spies, nurses, and fighters. Often times, they would wear a disguise and battle in the war.
At the beginning of the civil war, the job of nursing had just begun. Men were in control of nursing because women were often considered to be too feeble to care for the sick and injured. When war broke out, there were only 150 or so hospitals across the country. The number of injured or sick men who needed aid intensified dramatically in a short period of time. There were not enough medical professionals to care for all of them.
Due to this and the lack of organization, there was no longer a ban on women being nurses. Quickly, the ban was eliminated and women took urgent and critical action to improve the situation. In 1862, Clara Barton gathered up supplies and sent help to the battlefields before proper support groups could send shipments of this sort. Barton collected clothing, food, and medical supplies for the Union Army. Eventually, religious groups responded and sent their own trained nurses to the field hospitals located at the battlefront. In a period of a few months, there were 600 or more nurses in the 12 hospitals available. In 1861, Dorothea Dix and a group of volunteers planned a march in Washington, they urged the government to notice their ambition to care for the impaired. Secretary of war, Simon Cameron, noticed her and named her the manager of the women nurses designated to the United States Army. This put her in charge of supplying nurses to chief surgeons, organizing hospitals, and supplying significant aid to bring alleviation to the soldiers.
There were many spies during the Civil War but the best ones were the women. Men seldom viewed them as a threat because of their candid and elegant hearts. They took advantage of this and also deceived the men to get the information they needed from them. They used the prejudice of the era like weapons to help win battles, free generals, and smuggle prisoners. Women wore hoop skirts held up by a crinoline.
The steel bands in the skirt made smuggling items such as gun parts and ammunition, clothing, and quinine easier. The wide diameter of the skirts and the sturdy frames allowed things to hang unrecognized. Eggs were hollowed out and doll heads were made out of paper mâché to easily be used to smuggle medications and money. Male spies were often put into prison or assassinated, usually by hanging. Women were hardly executed and were usually imprisoned or unwillingly had to move to the south or Canada. Harriet Tubman was a cook, spy, conductor, and nurse. Tubman was the first female spy; she was initiated by Union officers to gather a group of former slaves to also be spies. Col. James Montgomery and Harriet lead a military expedition and freed slaves from rice plantations along the Combahee River. In 1863, Tubman, Montgomery, and hundreds of black soldiers traveled up the river avoiding mines along the waterway. Once they arrived at shore, they demolished a Confederate supply terminal and then freed more than 750 slaves.
For some women, working as a nurse was not their calling. More than 400 women disguised themselves as men to be able to fight in the war. Before 1872, the medical exams given did not involve taking off clothes, this made it easier for them to fool the military doctors.
Army recruits of the South were so badly needed that as long as the person who volunteered seemed healthy, had enough strong teeth to tear a cartridge, enough muscle to hoist a gun, and enough fingers to shoot and load a gun, they were welcomed to join the service. They suffered from everything the men suffered; the chance of death, wounds, illnesses, and limb detachment. Women fought for some of the same reasons men did. Some of the reasons was out of a sense of patriotism, to help abolish slavery, to earn money, and to escape a difficult or an unsatisfying life at home. Many of the women performed the same tasks as men. They battled on the frontlines, cooked, spied, and aided the sick or wounded soldiers. The women soldiers cut their hair short and spoke as least as they could to lower the chances of being caught. Along with cutting their hair and barely speaking women worked on lowering their voices, altering their walk, and taking up masculine hobbies like cursing, spitting, tobacco-chewing, and playing cards. Sometimes they would leave the service if they became sick, injured, or if they thought they were going to get caught.
Usually it was hard for women to do the things that they did do. Women were spies, nurses, and fighters. Generally, they would wear a disguise and battle in the war. Their main job was tending to the soldiers and their needs. That job was far from easy. The second job that they did was spy for the soldiers. Being a spy was very difficult but women used their womanly powers to make the job easier. Being on the frontlines was something many of the women dreamed of doing. Pretending to be a soldier had a lot of risks they had to be willing to deal with.
