White Women In The Civil War Essay

In the times leading up and during the civil war, the rights and roles of women came to a crucial turning point. The country was divided by the topic of slavery by the nineteenth century. In total, four million African Americans were still in bondage, with two million of them being women. Black women ultimately knew that, on either side of the war, making sure the union was preserved was the top priority. However, black women still hoped that they would eventually be free as a result of the war. Although a few northern white women opposed slavery for moral reasons, their main cause for abolition of slavery was, more or less, job security. Once the Seneca Falls Convention had came and passed, women abolitionists and women’s rights advocates came together

Many of the women who were a part of union camps were laundresses or cooks; a lot of escaped slaves were hired for these jobs. Sadly, prostitution became a way of making ends meet, as women had no other way to feed their children. An orphaned, young teenage woman, named Ana Jones was one of the more popular prostitutes, and had ties with George Armstrong Custer and General Judson Kilpatrick. The position of a vivandiere was another role taken on by women during the war. Vivandieres would sometimes carry a little keg of liquor for the soldiers, but mostly carried food. Also, a considerable amount of women disguised themselves as men to join the fight; such as, Belinda Blaylock, Rosetta Wakeman, Jennie Hodgers, and Sarah Edmonds. This was mostly because they desired independence or to be close to a loved one. Although neither side of the war would recruit women as soldiers, they were sometimes used for espionage. Women of society would sometimes use dressmaker’s patterns to sew coded messages into the lining of dresses; they would then pass information from household to household. Elizabeth Van Lew, a union spy, and Mrs. Rose Greenhow, a confederate spy, are two of the most famous female