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What Role Did Women Play In The Civil War

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Women’s Roles in the Civil War
Emilie Rabbers
West Catholic High School

Women’s Roles in the Civil War
In the 1860s, the lives of women, children, and men would be changed forever. Women at home replaced the males in their usual tasks like business, farming, or defending and supporting the family. Women faced many challenges at home, but each one would help them get through the pain and suffering their loved faced in the field. Women became aware of the ongoing struggle men faced in the war and used that to motivate them to take action. Women participated in the war as secret soldiers, nurses, and even spies. Women dressed up as males to replace their fathers or husbands in the Civil War. Women also joined the war for the reliable wages, promise of adventure and excitement, and to not experience the dreadful news that awaited them at home. Women played a significant role during the Civil War in the home and on the battlefield.
Women in the Home
Women knew that the beginning of the Civil War would change their lives and their families lives. The men, which included …show more content…

The women stepped in as the new head of the household “[performing] exhausting, physical work in and around their homes” (Middle Tennessee University, n.d.). Women began protecting and providing for their families, continuing the business, or farms “the cultivation of land, or a scanty living from the hills and valleys of this border, was made through much difficulty by women and children” (Crump 1907). Women knew their family and friends in the war needed as much help as possible so women “became valued employees at munitions plants and arsenals, building the machinery of war” (Civil War Trust, n.d.). Women made gunpowder, ammunition, and filled cartridges to supply the troops fighting the war, but by doing so put themselves in danger. Women such as Mary Jane Black encountered first hand the dangers of the

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