Category: Civil War Women

Civil War Women
Civil War Women, Famous Wives, First Ladies

Ida McKinley

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First Lady of the United States Ida Saxton McKinley, wife of William McKinley, 25th President of the United States, was First Lady from 1897 to 1901. She and her husband developed a unique way of coping with her epileptic seizures during her public appearances, and the love they shared during the early years of happiness endured through more than twenty years of illness. Image: Ida McKinley Photograph from the 1896 Presidential Campaign Early Years Ida Saxton was born June 8, 1847 in Canton, Ohio, the second of three children born to Katherine DeWalt and James Saxton, a prominent Canton banker. The Saxtons were a prominent family in Canton: Ida’s grandfather founded the Ohio Repository, the first newspaper in Canton, and…

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African Americans, Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women

Black Civil War Nurses

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African American Nurses in the Civil War Nursing was not a woman’s job before the Civil War, but by 1865, there were over 3,000 nurses serving the Union and Confederacy. In the North, most women nurses worked in military hospitals. Image: Black nurses with the 13th Massachusetts Infantry The 13th Mass fought in numerous battles, from the Shenandoah Valley to Bull Run to Antietam So many women volunteered as Union nurses that the U.S. government hired Dorothea Dix to serve as the superintendent of women nurses. African American nurses were not included in those numbers, nor were they recognized for their service for decades to come. Some were paid; many volunteered. During the Civil War, black women did serve as…

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Civil War Women, Gettysburg

Slyder Farm

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Farm on the Gettysburg Battlefield John Slyder married Catherine Study in Carroll County, Maryland on September 25, 1838, and the couple soon moved to Gettysburg. In the 1840s the Slyders resided on South Washington Street in town, and John went into business with a local potter named Edward Menchey. An 1847 an advertisement in the Adams Sentinel also listed Slyder’s house as a pick-up and drop-off location for a woolen manufacturing business. Citizens looking to have woolen goods manufactured at a factory located 3 miles outside of Hanover could drop off their own wool at Slyder’s residence and pick up the finished product at a later date. In 1849, the Slyders purchased a 74-acre tract of land at the foot…

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Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women, Female Soldiers

Women of Antietam

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Female Soldiers and Nurses at Antietam Fought on September 17, 1862, the Battle of Antietam was the first battle to occur on northern soil, and it is the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, with a combined tally of dead, wounded and missing at 22,717. Also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg, it took place near Sharpsburg, Maryland and Antietam Creek. Image: Rochester House Marker Where Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was treated for his wounds The battle occurred after 75,000 Union troops under General George B. McClellan followed the 38,000 Confederate troops led by General Robert E. Lee into Maryland. On the morning of September 17, McClellan launched attacks against Lee’s left flank near Antietam Creek. The Confederates counterattacked and…

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Civil War Hospitals, Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women

Armory Square Hospital

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Union Military Hospital in Washington DC Armory Square Hospital had twelve pavilions and overflow tents containing one thousand hospital beds filled with wounded from the battlefields of Virginia. The wounded were brought to the nearby wharves in southwest Washington and then taken to the Hospital. It was one of the largest Civil War hospitals in the area and one of many medical facilities located in downtown Washington, DC. Image: Chapel and buildings at Armory Square Completed U.S. Capitol in the distance Constructed in 1862, Armory Square took its name from the Old Armory on the Mall, around which the hospital was built. the medical facility spread accross the Mall and included quarters for officers, service facilities and a chapel. Situated…

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Civil War Women, Diaries and Letters

Devil Diarists of Winchester

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Union and Confederate Women Who Kept Diaries The small town of Winchester in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia changed hands between the Confederate Army and Union Army numerous times during the Civil War. The town’s strategic location included a network of seven major roads that radiated out toward other towns and cities; two of the roads were macadamized. This road system made the town a major trade center in the Valley. Image: Mary Greenhow Lee, Winchester’s most prolific diarist and dedicated Confederate sympathizer Another geographic feature would magnify in importance during the war: Winchester was surrounded on all sides by low hills that hid the approach of enemy armies. Occupying forces found it almost impossible to mount a defense, so…

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Civil War Love Stories, Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women, Famous Wives

Francis and Arabella Barlow

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Romantic Legends of the Civil War Arabella Griffith married Francis Barlow the day after he enlisted in the Union Army. Francis was a well-established New York lawyer, while Arabella was 10 years his senior and a member of New York high society. The following year she joined him in service to the Union Army. Image: Arabella Griffith Barlow Arabella Wharton Griffith was a young woman of twenty-two years when she moved from rural New Jersey to New York City to work as a governess, a bold move for a woman of that time. Her vibrant personality soon caught the attention of a group of literary-minded socialites, artists and politicians. Diarist George Templeton Strong wrote that she was, “certainly the most…

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Activists, African Americans, Civil War Women

Caroline Le Count

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Leader in the Integration of Philadelphia Streetcars An undertaker’s daughter, Caroline Le Count outscored all the boys in her class, struck up a correspondence with a Union army general, became only the second black woman named principal of a Philadelphia public school, and put her body on the line in the battle to integrate the streetcars. Soon she was noticed on the arm of a fellow activist, Octavius Catto. Image: The streetcar shown here at Sixth and Jackson Street demonstrates how streetcars typically operated with two horses, a driver and a conductor. The first horse-drawn streetcars in Philadelphia began operating January 20, 1858. They moved along a set of steel rails, which provided a smoother ride at faster speeds, regardless…

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Civil War Nurses, Civil War Spies, Civil War Women

Women and Civil War Prisons

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Civil War Women Prisoners of War Many of the arguments against women fighting in combat is the fear that they will become prisoners of war. Documentation proves that some soldiers who were discovered to be women during the Civil War were briefly imprisoned. Madame Collier was a Union soldier from East Tennessee who was captured and imprisoned at Belle Isle, Virginia. She continued concealing her gender, but another prisoner learned her secret and reported it to Confederate authorities, who sent her North under a flag of truce. Castle Thunder At Castle Thunder in Richmond, Virginia approximately one hundred female inmates were held throughout the war. Although Confederate authorities created a department at the prison specifically for the detention of “depraved…

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Civil War Women, Famous Firsts, Women Doctors

Hannah Myers Longshore

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Pioneer Physician and Professor of Anatomy Hannah Myers Longshore graduated from the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania’s first class in 1851 and became Philadelphia’s first woman doctor with a medical degree to establish a private practice, which she continued for forty years. She also lectured extensively first at the Female Medical College, and later in public speeches about sexual health at a time when there was little public discussion of any kind on the subject. Early Years Hannah Myers was born May 30, 1819 in Sandy Spring, Maryland, where her father taught at a Quaker school. She was the daughter of Samuel and Paulina Myers, Quakers from Bucks County, Pennsylvania who believed in equal education for boys and girls. While…

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