What Role Did Women Play In The Civil War

Women were important figures in the war because they were the support system for the soldiers. The war put much stress on them because they ran the house by themselves and even faked being men to fight in the war.

The women of the Civil War were huge roles in the victory of the North, and also in the coping with the loss in the South. In both the North and in the South the war forced women into a way of life that no one could have dreamed of in the preceding years. Before the war the lives of the women were mostly housework and raising the children. As the men’s job moved from home to offices, factories, and shops the women made do with what they had. The house became private, domestic, warm, and personalized place. The women refocused their world’s on creating a comfortable, clean, and loving home for their families. They turned their undivided attention to the world other than in their own houses, thousands of women in the North and South signed up, joined, and volunteered to work as emergency nurses in make-shift hospitals. The Civil War was the first time that women played such a significant role in a war.

They would cut off their hair, dress, and act like men. They bore arms and heroically charged into the face of the beast. They along with the men lived in germ filled camps, participated in vicious battle, suffered in terrible prisons, and died tragically. Both armies banned the enlistment of women soldiers, therefore the women either changed their names, faked their identities, or had masculine names. Due to the fact that they did hide their true identities it is hard to know how many of the soldiers were actually women, the estimated number of ranked women is around 250. Whereas the estimated number of women in the service is approximately 400. The existence of these women soldiers wasn’t a secret during or after the war, the public was aware of the women who rejected the social standards of the