These women cut their hair short, wore pants and shirts, and learned to swear and walk like men. A lack of facial hair might have been a hard thing to overlook but there were numerous underage boys in the military made it easier for females with boyish voices and little facial hair to go undetected.When the war first began most of the women enlisted in order to be close to their husbands, sweethearts or brothers. This was not an easy thing they chose to do. They were were accused of being insane and sometimes disowned by their families. They were also told by family and friends that the war was a man's war and to remain at home to care for the children and the farms while the men were off fighting.
Two of the best know woman during the Civil war were Mary and Mollie Bell. The Bells', aliases Bob Martin and Tom Parker, were teenaged farm girls from Virginia, whose uncle had left them to join the Union army. The girls enlisted in a cavalry regiment under the command of Confederate General Jubal A. Early. With the help of their captain, the Bells served for two years before their gender was discovered.Mary Owens enlisted in Company K, 9th Pennsylvania Cavalry, in order to be with her lover. She served 18 months under the assumed name of John Evans. She did not enlist in the same regiment but in one which belonged to the same division. Mary was discovered to be a woman after she was wounded in the arm. She returned to her home in Pennsylvania to a warm reception.
Frances Hook, aka Frank Martin, enlisted with her brother in Illinois. She was wounded at the Battle of Stones River, Tennessee, in December 1862. Her sex was discovered, and she was mustered out of the Union Army. She re-enlisted several times, as did other women soldiers who were discovered.
Sarah Emma Edmonds, a native of Canada, alias Franklin Thompson, enlisted in the Second Michigan Infantry in May 1861. Her regiment participated in the Peninsula Campaign and the battles of First Manassas, Fredericksburg, and Antietam. She deserted in April 1863 because she contracted malaria and feared that if she were hospitalized she would be found out.
Mary Livermore, a member of the Sanitary Commission, was instrumental in helping discover a female soldier in an Illinois regiment. Mary wrote:
"One of the captains came to me and begged to know if I noticed anything peculiar in the appearance of one of the men, whom he indicated. It was evident at a glance that the 'man' was a young woman in male attire, and I said so".
The young woman was called out of the ranks, but begged the officer to allow her to remain and keep her disguise as she had enlisted with her husband's company to be with him. She was escorted out of camp. That night she leaped into the Chicago River in an attempted suicide, but was rescued by a policeman.
The woman then said: "I have only my husband in all the world, and when he enlisted he promised me that I should go with him; and that was why I put on his clothes and enlisted in the same regiment. And go with him I will, in spite of everybody".The woman who volunteered for the war were a demonstration of the opposite of everything that most Americans males thought at the time. Most males thought women should be at home and subservient to their male partners and all males in general. Women of this time were taught to be frail and passive. These women proved that a woman could fight and stand up for something they believe in and be a strong individual.
These woman should be remembered just as their male counterparts for the duties they performed during the civil war. Valor and bravery see no sex as a prerequisite to be either.
Works Cited:
Burgess, Lauren "'Typical' ," The Washington Times , Oct. 5, 1991.
Livermore,Mary A. My Story of the War: A Woman's Narrative of Four Years' Personal Experience as Nurse in the Union Army
(1888), pp. 119-120.Blanton, DeAnne. "Women Soldiers of the Civil War." Prologue 25.Spring. (1993). Web. 10 May 2011. <http://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/1993/spring/women-in-the-civil-war-1.html>.
