The American Civil War marked a defining period in the United States history. The war forced women into public life in ways people may not be able to imagine in a generation. Thousands of women became involved in the war as Civil War nurses. Many women disguised themselves as men during the war so they can fight. This was the first time in many years that the women played a significant role in war.
Before the civil war it was mostly men who were nurses, but since a lot of them went to war, the ladies took on the job. Some women wanted to help in any way they could. Some enlisted, but were declined because they were ladies. Though there some special cases, some actually got appointed positions in the war. “The rebel cavalry leader, Stuart has appointed to a position on his staff, with the rank of Major, a young lady residing at Fairfax Court House” (General Stuart’s New Aid, 1863).
Who had the greater impact on nursing in the Crimean War- Florence Nightingale or Mary Seacole? Even though I believe that Mary Seacole is the better nurse and she helped more soldiers, I think that Florence Nightingale had a bigger impact on nursing because for one, she did run a big team of nurses in a hospital and set up a nursing school after the war but two, Mary Seacole had no way of impacting nurses because she was bankrupted after the war and she worked on the front line. Florence Nightingale had formal nurse training and went to help the soldiers in the Crimean war because she was invited to head the nursing staff there through the influence of powerful friends: Sidney Herbert (secretary at war at the beginning of the Crimean conflict) and his wife Elizabeth. Nightingale was to be accompanied by a team of 38 nurses who were picked by a committee who was careful to keep a religious balance among the volunteer nurses. On the other side of the world, Mary Seacole learnt about nursing from her mother which was informal unlike Florence Nightingales training.
The story Cold Mountain expresses many civil war related topics, hardships and relationships. The women during the Civil War, in my opinion, had the hardest part to do. They had to care for the sick and wounded while keeping themselves healthy. Some women had to trade families for gruesome bloody battle scenes. They basically went from smiles and laughs to sobs and tears.
(national institutes of health , 2014) Military nursing. With the start of nurse corps in early 1900 the role of nursing began to incorporate women into the military which came with a stigma that the armed forces were not appropriate for women. Though there was plenty of social backlash toward women in the military in general, the nursing profession was what sparred the harshness of the critics due to the government propaganda which directed its focus at the idea military nursing was a noble feminine pursuit. They
Secondly, the women kept the country going by sustaining the country’s labor needs. Thirdly, they provided munitions that were essential for the soldiers in the battlefield. Lastly, during war time, some British women chose to volunteer as nurses, cooks and helpers to assist male soldiers in the army. It is through these ways that British women held crucial roles during the war even though they did not directly participate in it. As soon as the war broke out, the women of Britain suspended their campaign for the franchise, and boosted recruitment among the country.
(2) As a result of the Commission's efforts, the disease death rate of the Union Army was reduced and millions of dollars were raised in support of the Northern war effort. The US Sanitary Commission was formed by civilians who wanted to support the Union soldiers and prevent the numbers of deaths by disease seen in previous wars. During the recent Crimean War, 1853-1856, disease caused four out of five British soldiers to die. In an effort to prevent more deaths, the British Sanitary Commission was established. The BSC appointed a nurse named Florence Nightingale to oversee the conditions of the hospitals in the Crimea.
Nursing was a popular occupation for many women during the Civil War. At least 3,000 women held apid nursing postions in the North and South, and thousands of others worked as volunteers. "The war is certainly ours as well as men's" said Kate Cummings, of Mobile, Alabama, who became the matron of a large Confederate hospital. Authorities were wary of putting young girls in intimate contact with bedridden soldiers. Dorothea Dix, when she became superintendent of Union nurses, set a minimum age of thirty for her volunteers and demanded that they be "plain looking women" As the war went on and theneed for medical assistance became more desperate, Dix ignored her own regulations.
They began to take up jobs that would be considered unsuitable for women before 1914, such as working in munitions factories and other war industries. Many women volunteered to work overseas as nurses or ambulance drivers. They also drove buses, streetcars, and worked on police forces and civil service jobs. They were also needed for agriculture. Almost all jobs men did before they left to fight in the war were now a women’s job.
Women played many roles in the civil war. They did not wait for the men in their lives to come home from the battlefield. Many women supported the war effort as nurses and aides, while others took a more upfront approach and secretly enlisted in the army or served as spies and smugglers. These new jobs delimitate their traditional roles as housewives and mothers and made them an important part of the war effort. Two of the important women in the civil war were, Clara Barton and Harriet Tubman.