Roles of Women and Children

Women and children were the silent casualties of the Civil War. They were the ones left behind to fend for themselves, as well as their children, and also to maintain the household that existed prior to the war in an impossible situation. Prior to the war, women and children were taken care of by the men in the family. Most, if not all, did not work outside the home and relied on the patriarch to take care of them. Southern belles as described by Brown (2000) were women that oversaw the household functions that included cooking, cleaning and educating their children. Thrust into the wartime, they were now required to manage the entire household, in all areas including financial, in which they were sorely lacking in skill. They were now also required to manage the slaves of their plantations. In the North, the women were leaving the home and working in areas of ammunition production, to support the Northern cause, as described by Giesberg (2010). They were also working as nurses to take care of the wounded soldiers. Towards the end of the war, the north had blocked all supplies to the south. Women and children faced starvation. It is at this time that the women of the time period became fiercely savage and took to raiding stores to provide the basic necessities to care for their family (Williams & Williams, 2002). There was no woman or child in the north or the south that was unaffected during this period. Their roles were forever changes by the challenges faced throughout the war.

Nurses and Officers of the U.S. Sanitary Commission; Fredicksburg, VA