The Part Played by Women in the American Civil War Coursework Example

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The Part Played by Women in the American Civil War
Many American women during the civil war spun their devotion to the world outside the home. A huge number of them from the North and South offered to assist in the war as nurses, and some joined volunteer while others were serving as spies. In the American history, this was the first time women played an important part in the war front. However, not all women necessarily had to become soldiers for them to experience this new independence. Because most men joined the army, most businesses were left in the care of women. The appearance of the women empowerment in the period of the civil war brought about a positive energy for the women’s rights movement. Women were getting recognized and got the chance to control their own lives as well as manage their homes and finances.
Several females worked as secret agents for the Union armies and confederate in the civil war, they flirted with the enemy militaries at dinners, social events, and parties to gather military intelligence for their government. They also smuggled medicine, ammunitions, and supplies across enemy lines through hiding the supplies inside their big hoop skirts. Most of the female spies were rarely detected because they never suspected women to be part of the war; this made it easier for them to get into the Union strongholds and the Northern cities. Moreover, some of the spies were so cunning that they could charm military and government officials to gather information.

Or listen in to conversations in hotel lobbies.
Some well-known women who were notoriously known during the war are Elizabeth Van Lew, Harriet Tubman, Rose Greenhow and Belle Boyd. Others shied away from talking about their covert works after the war such as Nashville’s Mary Frances “Fanny” Battle (Smith 404).

Nursing is one of the major roles that women were associated with during the Civil War; this was partly because of Nurse Clara Barton, whose fame later made her create the American Red Cross. Oddly, women were discouraged from attending to the ill and wounded in any sanctioned capability by the surgeons and the military administrators in the South and North. Mostly because nursing was seen as a gruesome task and most women had to demonstrate their capability in handling the job and be able to function in the chaotic, dangerous situation filled with lots of strangers especially male. A large number of the Northern women who worked as a nurse were working under the umbrella of a civilian organization known as the United States Sanitary Commission, which was created to care of the wounded unions during the war. Some of the tasks the nurses engaged in are dispense medicine, change bandages, tend to the ill and wounded as well as cook and serve meals for the soldiers, write them letters and word of encouragement, pass out supplies, and did their laundry. Clara Burton got her fame when she started showing up at local frontlines equipped with medical provisions to nursing the wounded. She declined to wait for the wounded to be carried to the back of the battleground and preferred to tend to then as they fall, dodging bullets and that earned her the title of “Angel of the Battlefield” and later in June 1864 she got selected to be the supervisor of nurses in the Army of the James (Egenes and Vlasses 71).

Other roles played by the women during the war include Vivandieres “Daughters of the regiment”. These were wives and daughters of the officers, whose work was to accompany and offer support to the Confederate and Union regiments. They sold coffee, whiskey, tobacco, oil lamps, identification tags and much other necessity to the troops. They also cooked, did laundry and sewing. They were assigned to each regiment so as to reduce the numbers of women following the army. Another group of women who benefited from the war was the enslaved women. The armies of them brought more than a mix of dread and excitement. The Union army brought about a shift of power in the South’s slave structure and became a facilitator for liberation. Most of the enslaved women took this as an opportunity to run to the war fronts and look for work instead of continuing being slaves where they were. Some worked as nurses, seamstresses, laundresses; others offered assistance in hospitals and even became manual workers on fortifications like the Nashville’s Fort Negley (Cushman 144).

In conclusion, A majority of roles played by women in the civil war were not really out of the ordinary. There was no war where women were not involved in but the most legends of war identify only male soldiers and the female are portrayed as victims and hence becomes hard embracing legends of female warriors and those that helped in the war front. What is wrong with that picture? Aren’t women’s roles really vital to the analysis of military history? Although it is vital to identify the presence of women’s roles as described here, the failure to recognize women soldiers is particularly disgraceful. It does make a huge difference in our understanding of war to include all parts played by women historically as well as know that women did also volunteer in defending and dying for their country.

Works Cited
Cushman, Stephen. “A History of American Civil War Literature ed. by Coleman Hutchison.” The Journal of the Civil War Era 7.1 (2017): 143-145.
Egenes, Karen, and Frances Vlasses. “Clara Barton: Angel of the Battlefield.” Nursing’s Greatest Leaders: A History of Activism (2016): 71.
Smith, Andrea. “Heteropatriarchy and the three pillars of white supremacy: Rethinking women of color organizing.” Women in Culture: An Intersectional Anthology for Gender and Women’s Studies (2016): 404.