Category: Civil War Women

Civil War Women
Civil War Women

Vicksburg National Military Park

• Maggie

Site of the Battle of Vicksburg The most impressive of the memorials at Vicksburg National Military Park is the Illinois Monument, which was modeled after the Roman Pantheon. On its walls are 60 bronze tablets which record the names of the 36,325 Illinois soldiers who participated in the Vicksburg campaign. The Shirley House, to the right of the monument, is the only building in the park that survived the siege. Vicksburg National Military Park encompasses over 1800 acres along sixteen miles of road. There are more than 1300 monuments, tablets, and plaques commemorating individuals and units. In addition, it includes the exhibit and museum of the U.S.S. Cairo gunboat, 3 river batteries, Grant’s canal in Louisiana, and the headquarters of…

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Civil War Women, Diaries and Letters

Emma Balfour

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Civil War Diarist of Vicksburg Vicksburg, Mississippi is located on a well-fortified west-facing cliff overlooking the Mississippi River. The Siege of Vicksburg was initiated by the Union Army under General Ulysses S. Grant, whose aim was to gain control of the Mississippi River by capturing this Confederate riverfront stronghold and defeating General John C. Pemberton’s Confederate forces stationed there. Emma Harrison was living with her brother Dr. Thomas Harrison and his wife at their plantation in Alabama after the death of her first husband, when she met Dr. William Balfour of Vicksburg, Mississippi. Emma later married Dr. Balfour, who had attended medical school with her brother, and moved with him to Vicksburg. Emma Balfour wrote one of the most accurate…

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Civil War Women, Generals Wives

Martha Ready Morgan

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Wife of Confederate General John Hunt Morgan Martha Ready was born near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on June 21, 1840. She was the sixth of eight children, and the second of four girls born to Colonel Charles Ready, Jr. and Martha Strong Ready. Affectionately known as “Mattie,” she was described as a “very attractive young woman of medium height, with a shapely figure, a fair, creamy complexion, large blue eyes, and dark hair.” Mattie attended the very prestigious Soule College in Murfreesboro and the Nashville Female Academy during the 1850s where young ladies could receive a traditional Southern education in cultural studies and social graces. As the teenage daughter of Charles Ready, a U.S. Congressman from Tennessee, Mattie Ready was caught up…

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Civil War Women, Philanthropists

Rosanna Osterman

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Jewish Civil War Nurse and Philanthropist Rosanna Dyer was born February 26, 1809 in Germany. Her parents, Isabella and John M. Dyer, moved the family to Baltimore when Rosanna was very young. Her family was very active in the Baltimore Jewish community, and were part of the group that built Baltimore’s first synagogue. At age 16, Rosanna married Joseph Osterman, a Dutch-born merchant and silversmith. In 1838, after experiencing some financial reversals, the Ostermans moved to Galveston to establish a business in the new Republic of Texas. Rosanna and Joseph Osterman were pioneer citizens of Galveston, Texas. They opened a mercantile store that traded with all parts of Texas and abroad. They were so successful that by 1842 they were…

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African Americans, Civil War Women

Amanda Dickson

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Wealthy African American Woman Amanda America Dickson, the daughter of a slave and her white owner, became one of the wealthiest black women in nineteenth-century America. She was born on November 20, 1849, on the plantation of her father, the famous white agricultural reformer David Dickson in Hancock County, Georgia. Amanda’s birth was the product of Dickson’s rape of his twelve-year-old slave, Julia Frances Lewis Dickson. At the time, he was forty and the most prosperous planter in the county. According to the Dickson family oral history, David Dickson doted on his mixed-race daughter, and Julia quite openly became his concubine and housekeeper. Though she remained legally enslaved until 1864, Amanda received a lady’s upbringing, including beautiful dresses, lessons on…

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Civil War Spies, Civil War Women

Olivia Floyd

• Maggie

Confederate Spy and Messenger Image: Olivia Floyd Marker One of the more fascinating figures during the Civil War was Miss Olivia Floyd. She lived at a plantation house known as Rose Hill in Charles County, Maryland. Rose Hill was built in 1730, and was the former home of Dr. Gustavus Richard Brown, a physician to George Washington. In later years, Rose Hill was purchased by Ignatius Semmes, who willed it to Olivia Floyd, her sister Mary and their brother Robert in 1843. Annie Olivia Floyd was born on July 2, 1826 to David and Sarah Semmes Floyd. In early childhood, Olivia broke her back, and remained crippled her entire life because the break had never been set properly, but that…

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Civil War Women, Female Soldiers

Jane Short

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Female Soldier in the Union Army Despite being injured at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862, Jane Short was not discovered as a woman until she became ill a few months later. After her discharge, she reenlisted and served until August 1864. Image: Battle of Shiloh by Thure de Thulstrup Many women who disguised themselves as men and enlisted during the Civil War did so to follow a loved one into battle. Others, like Jane Short, alias Charley Davis, were simply looking for adventure. Jane, who enlisted in a Missouri Union infantry regiment in 1861, later explained she was “pining for the excitement of glorious war.” From the Memphis Bulletin, August 18, 1864: Two females dressed in Federal uniform were…

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French Mary Tepe
Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women

French Mary Tepe

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Civil War Vivandiere and Nurse French Mary Tepe, a Civil War Vivandiere, was a French immigrant who married the Philadelphia tailor, Bernardo Tepe. Vivandieres were a combination nurse, cook, seamstress, and laundress who travelled with the Zouaves. They usually adopted the style of clothing of her regiment, but with men’s pants under a knee-length skirt, and carried a cask that was generally filled with water, brandy, or wine. Mary Tepe was certainly the most famous of those ladies. Image: French Mary Tepe stands on Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg, where she served as a nurse at the field hospitals in July 1863. Mary (Marie) Brose was born on August 24, 1834 in the village of Brest, France. Her mother was French…

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Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women

Ellen Mitchell

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Civil War Nurse This lady, better known as Nellie Mitchell, was at the opening of the war a resident of Montrose, Pennsylvania, where she was surrounded by friends, had a pleasant home, was amiable, highly educated and accomplished. Her family was one that was often named as “our first families.” Image: The Dying Soldier Miss Mitchell left her home in Montrose early in May 1861, and went to New York City, where she took a course in surgical nursing at Bellevue Hospital, to prepare for assuming the duties of an army nurse. The terrible sights she witnessed there so impaired her health that after six weeks she went to Woodbury, Connecticut, where she remained with friends while awaiting orders, and…

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Civil War Women, Female Soldiers

Sarah Emma Edmonds

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Union Nurse, Soldier and Spy Offended by the idea of slavery, Sarah Emma Edmonds enlisted in the Second Michigan Infantry as Frank Thompson on May 25, 1861, when the first call for volunteers came from President Abraham Lincoln. She was given the rank of Private, and was assigned as a male nurse at the field hospital of the 2nd Michigan Volunteers. In her own words, she “went to war with no other ambition than to nurse the sick and care for the wounded.” Early Years Born in 1842 in Nova Scotia, Sarah Emma Edmonds began life in a strict religious home where her father resented her for not being a boy. Emma endured her early childhood in Canada, trying to…

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