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HIS 226 - Civil War: Civil War Women

A guide to support History 226, The Civil War. This course examines the social, political, economic, and ideological forces that led to the Civil War and Reconstruction. Topics include regional conflicts and sectionalism, dissolution of the Union, militar

Films on Civil War Women

Civil War Women -- Articles

Women in the Civil War

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The devil's half acre: the untold story of how one woman liberated the South's most notorious slave jail

Mary Lumpkin not only found a way to educate and free her children-and herself-but she managed to create something monumental. When Robert Lumpkin died and left his jail to Mary, she rented The Devil's Half Acre to a Baptist missionary and helped transform it into 'God's Half Acre,' a place where freed Black men could be educated. These same grounds where enslaved people were tortured and held before slave auctions eventually became the cornerstone for Virginia Union University, one of the nation's first HBCUs, which is still open today. 

Women During the Civil War : An Encyclopedia

Women During the Civil War: An Encyclopedia is the first A-Z reference work to offer a panoramic presentation of the contributions, achievements, and personal stories of American women during one of the most turbulent eras of the nation's history.

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Women and the American Civil War: North-South counterpoints

In a series of eight paired essays, scholars examine women's comparable experiences across the regions, focusing particularly on women's politics, wartime mobilization, emancipation, wartime relief, women and families, religion, reconstruction, and Civil War memory.

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Keep the days: reading the Civil War diaries of Southern women

Delving into several familiar wartime diaries kept by women of the southern slave-owning class, Steven Stowe recaptures their motivations to keep the days close even as war tore apart the brutal system of slavery that had benefited them. Whether the diarists recorded thoughts about themselves, their opinions about men, or their observations about slavery, race, and warfare, Stowe shows how these women, by writing the immediate moment, found meaning in a changing world.

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My work among the freedmen: the Civil War and Reconstruction letters of Harriet M. Buss

An unabridged edition of the letters written by Harriet M. Buss to her parents during her time as a teacher for freedpeople in coastal South Carolina (1863-1864), Norfolk, Virginia (1868-1869), and Raleigh, North Carolina (1869-1871).

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All the daring of the soldier : women of the Civil War armies

These are the stories of the women who worked as spies, as daughters of the regiments, or, disguised, as male soldiers to play their heroic part in the Civil War.

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Behind the Rifle : Women Soldiers in Civil War Mississippi

Behind the Rifle: Women Soldiers in Civil War Mississippi is a groundbreaking study that discusses women soldiers with a connection to Mississippi--either those who hailed from the Magnolia State or those from elsewhere who fought in Mississippi battles. Readers will learn who they were, why they chose to fight at a time when military service for women was banned, and the horrors they experienced.

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The Women's Fight

Historians of the Civil War often speak of "wars within a war--the military fight, wartime struggles on the home front, and the political and moral battle to preserve the Union and end slavery. In this broadly conceived book, Thavolia Glymph provides a comprehensive new history of women's roles and lives in the Civil War--North and South, white and black, slave and free--showing how women were essentially and fully engaged in all three arenas.

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Worth a Dozen Men : Women and Nursing in the Civil War South

 Challenging the assumption that Southern women’s contributions to the war effort were less systematic and organized than those of Union women, Worth a Dozen Men looks at the Civil War as a watershed moment for Southern women. 

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Women's War : Fighting and Surviving the American Civil War

The idea that women are outside of war is a powerful myth, one that shaped the Civil War and still determines how we write about it today. Through three dramatic stories that span the war, Stephanie McCurry invites us to see America's bloodiest conflict for what it was: not just a brothers' war but a women's war. 

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Women in the Civil War

When the Civil War broke out, women answered the call for help. They broke away from their traditional roles and served in many capacities, some of them even going so far as to disguise themselves as men and enlist in the army. Estimates of such women enlistees range from 400 to 700. About 60 women soldiers were known to have been killed or wounded.  

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The Tie That Bound Us : The Women of John Brown's Family and the Legacy of Radical Abolitionism

In The Tie That Bound Us, Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz reveals for the first time the depth of the Brown women’s involvement in his cause and their crucial roles in preserving and transforming his legacy after his death. 

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The Better Angels : Five Women Who Changed Civil War America

Harriet Tubman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Clara Barton, Julia Ward Howe, and Sarah Josepha Hale came from backgrounds that ranged from abject enslavement to New York City's elite. Surmounting social and political obstacles, they emerged before and during the worst crisis in American history, the Civil War.

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