Civil War Essay

The Civil War was not just a man’s war. Even though women were thought of as inferior to men, they played a major role in the Civil War. In order to understand a woman’s power in the Civil War, you need to look at what a woman did. Women would disguise as men to fight in combat, they took over jobs that men normally held, and they worked as nurses to heal the sick and the injured. Women were affected the most by the Civil War. It allowed them to prove their worth and fight for their rights. As men were the forefront of the war, women had to work extremely hard since they were not expected to be any help.
Women such as Frances Clayton and Loreta Vazquez disguised as men to fight the battles of the Civil War. Since women were not allowed to join the battles, they had to break certain rules and dressed as something they were not so they could join. Females were prohibited from joining the army based solely on the premise of their gender. Husbands and wives were separated, women being left home alone. With the thought of men dying for them, many women decided to take action and join the army. It is estimated that over four hundred women disguised as men to join the war. They would not let anyone think of them as needy women in distress. They proved their worth in the army by playing crucial roles for both the Union and Confederacy. Rose Greenhow was one of the most famous spies in the Civil War. She was considered a hero to the Confederacy for the information she received on the Union’s movement. It was a very dangerous job since at any time they could be caught. Still, women persisted and kept fighting. Without woman to play this role, things would have gone very differently and the war would have been even more difficult.
Since almost all men had been drafted into the war, women had to keep up production in factories and hold government positions. Women had to produce military items such as bullets and uniforms. They worked dangerous jobs in arsenal factories where many casualties occurred. They lost their lives trying to help the side of the army they supported. Unlike before the war, women held many important new jobs they did not have before. They made money in the mints, worked in post offices, and copied official documents. They took on responsibilities that were never done by women before.
Women, such as Clara Barton, served as nurses in the Civil War. They provided medical care to the wounded and sick soldiers. No matter what gruesome or horrible scene they had to face, they continued to work to save the lives of all soldiers. Sally Tompkins was the only woman to be named an officer in the Confederate army due to her treatment of over 1,300 wounded men. Although men had a lot of prejudice against the women as nurses, women continued to work extremely hard to overcome these unfair ideas that women could not handle the war. Men thought women could not take on this responsibility because they would be too emotional. They fought against sexism to ensure that all soldiers in need were cared for. Even African American women such as Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth helped their cause by working as nurses in the Union. They would bring back wounded soldiers from the battlefield and bring them to hospitals. Since most fighting took place on Confederate soil, women in the south had to turn their homes into makeshift hospitals. They took care of soldiers, sometimes haunted by the death and suffering they saw. The women were greatly affected by the bloody warfare they witnessed, but continued working hard anyway. They tried to overcome a stereotype that working in the war was unladylike. Even if men still thought less of them, they continued to save their lives.
Victory relied not only on the men that fought in the war, but on those that served to support the war and the soldiers fighting in it. Women made sure they did everything they could for the sake of winning the war. Time after time, they proved a valuable asset to both sides of the divided country. They did the duties that could not be taken care of since men had left for war. From making bullets and uniforms, serving as nurses to heal those wounded in the battlefield, and joining the army to fight for their selves, the war became a forefront for women’s rights. They proved that they could fight and work for themselves, that they were not dependent on men. For many, this was the first time they had been on their own, without a man and with the power to do what they wanted. Whether they served on the Union or Confederacy, women all across the divided country were united in the same quest, to bring forth unity for the country, regardless of gender.