- Seasoned by antebellum activism, women who demonstrated profound leadership qualities during the war include not only Dorothea Dix, Clara Barton and Louisa May Alcott, but also the noted abolitionists Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth. Dix and Barton were put in charge of Civil War nurses, while Alcott recorded her nursing experiences in a critically praised collection of letters titled "Hospital Sketches," published in 1863. In their combined efforts, Tubman and Truth served as powerful guideposts for escaped slaves and abolitionists alike. By contrast, prominent women of the South were placed in uncomfortable leadership positions, as they took charge of plantations populated with slave workers while their husbands were obliged to fight in the war. They were expected to maintain the viability of the institution of slavery, prompting many of them to suffer from emotional illness. In her book "Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War," Drew Gilpin Faust notes that "instead of an effective effort to exert dominance, white women's recourse to violence often represented a loss of control--over both themselves and their slaves."
- One of the most fertile sources of information regarding the Civil War, correspondence sent by women to men serving on battle fronts, reveals how women supported their husbands, brothers and fathers on emotional as well as an ideological levels. As casualties mounted over the course of the war, women were ultimately forced to question their commitment to the lofty aims and political principles that had guided their decisions early in the war.
- During the war, the fortunes of many women were reversed, especially those who resided in the South. George C. Rable, author of "Civil Wars: Women and the Crisis of Southern Nationalism," charts the gradual progressive decline of Kate Stone, who was the author of a comprehensive Civil War journal. At the commencement of the war, Stone was a 20 year-old southern belle who, in her fidelity to the war cause, was led to reconsider the trappings of her lavish lifestyle. In her journal, Stone declared that fashion had become a 'secondary consideration,' yet Rable maintains that "clothing still symbolized social respectability." However, when Stone was stripped of her riches and forced to live a life as a refugee, her aspiring sense of egalitarianism was dramatically altered. In his analysis of Stone's journal, Rable suggests that even out of the ashes of war, with physical semblances of society left in ruins, a desire for social standing continued to animate the imaginations of post-war survivors.
- In certain documented instances, female patriots in disguise were enlisted as Civil War soldiers. Passing as men, these women served meritoriously in the infantry, cavalry and artillery. Much akin to a 19th century Joan of Arc, these women fooled their comrades until their true identities were discovered post mortem. Such a gender-bending case is documented by William F. Fox, in his study of muster-out rolls of the war in "Regimental Losses in the American Civil War, 1861-1865," where he notes the death of "Sergeant Frank Mayne; deserted Aug. 24, 1862; subsequently killed in battle in another regiment, and discovered to be a woman; real name, Frances Day."
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