While men typically occupy the front lines of Civil War narratives, war-time hospitals created space for women to play significant roles. Millions of soldiers were injured during the war, with hundreds of thousands requiring hospitalization to various degrees. The sudden necessity of large volumes of nurses to work in the hundreds of temporary war-era hospitals…
White male Christians of the South often appeal to images of godly women to remind soldiers of their honor or duty. A letter composed by a soldier stationed in the besieged city of Charleston, South Carolina this month is a case in point. While the attention of both the United and Confederate states is riveted…
This month the Southern Carolina Baptist Confederate newspaper applauds the fact that Greenville Baptist Female College is filled to capacity. Traditionally a finishing school for young ladies–reinforcing the Southern view of women as homemakers whose role is that of faithful wife and mother–the prolonged, bloody war adds a second dimension to women’s place in the…