Elizabeth D. Leonard is the John J. and Cornelia V. Gibson Professor of History at Colby College. The author of several books, including Yankee Women, All the Daring of a Soldier, Lincoln’s Avengers, and Men of Color to Arms!, she lives in Waterville, Maine.
At the core of this well-researched investigation into the role of women in the Civil War armies is a sensitivity to the plight of Victorian-era women. Leonard (Yankee Women) notes that "domestic service continued in the late nineteenth century to represent the primary waged occupation for women." It's no wonder, then, that a few intrepid women decided that the war offered them a better chance to be all that they could be. A Colby College history professor, Leonard has plowed through archives to bring readers the stories of dozens of women who served in both the Union and Confederacy during the Civil War. Some were spies, but many more adopted men's names, dressed in men's clothes and lived and fought and died alongside mostly unsuspecting men. One Union general "became outraged when an unnamed sergeant under his command `was delivered of a baby,' which, he irately noted `is in violation of all military law and of the army regulations.'" Often, when women were discovered in the ranks, they were accused of being clever prostitutes who enlisted because of the promise of steady business. Leonard dismisses this theory, noting that there was hardly a need for prostitutes to go incognito. Leonard's engaging portraits of these female soldiers are neatly contextualized, and she makes it clear that women enlisted because they were patriots, because they wanted to be near husbands and brothers and, perhaps above all, because they felt the war offered them a chance at autonomy and adventure. (July) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.
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