Women's Contributions to the American Civil War

Overview of Women's Wartime Roles

The American Civil War was a war between brothers, cousins, friends, and neighbors — and many of those who served were women. Military records, diaries, and history books show that women contributed a great deal to the war effort by serving as vivandieres — women who provided food, provisions, and liquor to soldiers — and as sutlers, peddlers who sold goods to military units in the field. Women also served as nurses, soldiers, and spies. Historical records verify that over eighty women were either wounded or killed at various battles during the War Between the States, and that an estimated four hundred or more women served in the Civil War on both sides, not counting the thousands who served as nurses.

Emma Edmonds: Soldier and Spy

The women profiled below represent only a fraction of those who contributed to the conflict. Their stories span espionage, battlefield medicine, combat service, and education, and together they illustrate the remarkable breadth of women's participation in the American Civil War.

Emma Edmonds was one woman who not only succeeded in remaining in the army for several years, but was also eminently successful as a Union spy — all the while impersonating a man. Born in 1842 in Nova Scotia, Emma had a very difficult early life due to her father's anger that she had not been born a boy. To counter his temper, she did everything she could to prove herself, but when she could no longer endure his abusive treatment, Emma fled to the United States and settled in Flint, Michigan.

When the first call for Union enlistments went out, Emma cropped her hair, obtained a man's suit of clothing, took the name Frank Thompson, and tried to enlist. After four attempts, she finally succeeded and was sworn into the Union Army. It should be noted that during this era there was no medical examination for enlistment; recruits were merely asked questions. On April 25, 1861, Emma Edmonds — alias Frank Thompson — became a male nurse in the Second Michigan Volunteers of the United States Army. After training in Washington, D.C., her unit was sent south to take part in McClellan's campaign in Virginia. When a Union agent working for McClellan was caught and killed, Private Frank Thompson volunteered to become a spy for the campaign. She studied everything she could find on weapons, tactics, local geography, and military personalities. When interviewed for the position, she so impressed the staff that she was immediately given the role.

Prior to her first mission, Emma had to devise a disguise so as not to alert the Confederates to her real purpose. She decided to enter Confederate territory as a Black man, and with assistance from the wife of the local chaplain, she used silver nitrate to darken her skin to the point that the doctor she worked for in the Confederate hospital did not recognize her. Once on the Confederate front — donned in men's clothing and a Black minstrel wig, and using the assumed name "Cuff" — Emma was first assigned to work on the ramparts being built to counter McClellan, and then moved to the kitchen, where she learned about the size and morale of the army, the weapons available, and details such as the "Quaker guns" — logs painted black to resemble cannons from a distance. On the third day she escaped, returned to the Union side, and delivered the information to McClellan, then resumed her duties as a male nurse.

A few months later, Private Thompson was again asked to infiltrate Confederate lines, this time disguised as a heavyset Irish peddler woman named Bridget O'Shea. Once again she successfully gained admittance to Confederate camps, sold some of her wares, and gathered as much intelligence as she could. While returning to the Union camp she was wounded in the arm, but managed to elude the Confederates. While serving under General Sheridan, Emma again went behind enemy lines as "Cuff," and also as a Black laundress whose access to officers' quarters allowed her to obtain official papers, which she brought back to the Union side. She also served under General Burnside, assuming the role of a young man with Southern sympathies named Charles Mayberry, and once again successfully infiltrated enemy lines.

While serving under General Grant, Emma fell ill with malaria. In order to protect her identity she left camp to recover in a private hospital in Cairo, Illinois. After her recovery she planned to rejoin her unit, but discovered that the name of Private Frank Thompson appeared on a list of deserters. She therefore went to Washington and worked as a nurse until the end of the war. As Thompson, Emma had accomplished eleven successful missions.

After the war, Emma wrote her memoirs, titled Nurse and Spy in the Union Army, and donated all profits from her popular book to the U.S. war relief fund. She returned to Canada and in 1867 married Linus Seelye, then returned to the United States and raised three sons. Although happily married, Emma was troubled by the deserter designation that still attached to her name. She petitioned the War Department for a full review, and on March 28, 1884, the House of Representatives passed House Bill No. 5335 validating her case. On July 5, 1884, Congress granted Emma Edmonds — alias Frank Thompson — an honorable discharge from the army, along with a bonus and a veteran's pension. Emma died on September 5, 1889, in La Porte, Texas. She is buried in the military section of Washington Cemetery in Houston, and in honor of her duty and devotion she remains the only female member of the Grand Army of the Republic, the organization formed after the Civil War by Union veterans.

Clara Barton: Nurse and Humanitarian

Clara Barton, born in 1821, began her Civil War work in April 1861. After the Battle of Bull Run, she established an agency to obtain and distribute supplies to wounded soldiers. In July 1862 she gained permission to travel behind the lines, eventually reaching some of the grimmest battlefields of the war and serving during the sieges of Petersburg and Richmond. Clara was a true humanitarian, delivering aid to soldiers of both the North and South. After the war she became a popular and widely respected lecturer, and in 1881 she established the American Red Cross, serving as its director until her death.

When Clara was sixteen, phrenologist Lorenzo Fowler encouraged her to become a teacher to overcome her shyness. She taught in a small Massachusetts town for ten years and later, while teaching at a private school in Bordentown, New Jersey, recognized the need for free public education and set up one of the first free public schools in the state. In 1854 she moved to Washington, D.C., and became the first woman to work at the U.S. Patent Office.

When war broke out between France and Prussia, bringing hardship to many French civilians, Clara joined the relief effort. In the process she was impressed by a new organization — the Red Cross, created in 1864 to provide humane services to all wartime victims under a flag of neutrality. Upon returning to the United States, Clara began petitioning the government to establish an American branch. Finally, in 1881, at the age of sixty, she succeeded; the government recognized the American Red Cross and extended its mandate to include relief for natural disasters. She continued relief work in the field well into her seventies. However, she was not a strong administrator, and due to internal political conflict at the Red Cross, she was forced to resign as president in 1904. Clara Barton never married. She died in 1912 at the age of ninety and is buried less than a mile from her birthplace in Oxford, Massachusetts.