Sarah Emma Edmonds in the Civil War
Oh, Man!
Xavier Robinson
Youth Division
Website
Word Count:
Thesis
Sarah Emma Edmonds didn’t accept traditional roles assigned to women at the turn of the 19th century in America. At the time, no women were allowed to participate in the military. However, through the use of many disguises, she not only served in the Union Army as a spy and a field nurse in the Civil War, she also broke down the wall of sexism for women. After Edmonds’ service, women following in her footsteps would be able to serve in the military and receive a pension. This is important because everyone should be equal, no matter their gender.
Background
The Civil War, or the War Between the States, occurred from April 1861
…show more content…
During the time she spent in the confederate camp, she gathered a lot of information which she brought back to the Union. She also had several other spy missions in different confederate camps as Cuff.
After another successful mission she was transferred to Grant’s Army, but she caught malaria. Since she could not risk being discovered as a woman at the Union Army hospital, she left camp and went to a private hospital as a woman. Once recovered she planned to go back to the Union Army, until she realized Private Franklin Thompson was listed as a deserter. Because being a deserter is a punishable crime, she did not want to go back and be arrested. So, Emma Edmonds went to Washington and worked as a nurse until the end of the
…show more content…
Then, during World War II (1941 - 1945) women had more roles like mechanics, ambulance drivers, and even pilots! In 1948 women were given veterans benefits like healthcare and pensions. After that, in 1973 the all male draft was over and an all volunteer military was created, so women had more opportunities. Until 1991 women could not serve in combat zones. In 2008,16,000 women served in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, and other combat zones.
In 2015 the military removed the ban on women serving in combat roles. Before this women could serve in combat zones, but could not serve in combat roles (i.e. drive tanks, lead the infantry, be an Army Ranger or Navy SEAL). Now men and women serving in the military can have the same jobs and are paid the same rate based on rank and specialty.
Another long term event was the Spanish-American War. Along with this war came a plauge of typhoid fever. Everyone needed the qualified Army nurses for the job. The surgeon requested and quickly received authority from congressionals to assign women nurses if they signed a contract. Due to the perfect performance of these female Army contract nurses, the United States military noticed it would be helpful to have a lot of trained nurses, who know military ideals, on call. This made the Army establish a forever standing Nurse Corps in the year
During her deployment she wrote a series of letters home detailing her experiences in the military. The first letter Wakeman sent home contained information about why she left home and what she was doing. Wakeman often sent money home because she wanted to pay off family debts. Interestingly, Wakeman used her birth name every time she signed her letters. If the Union post officials had seen any of these letters her military career would have been short lived.
Within Megan H. Mackenzie’s essay, “Let Women Fight” she points out many facts about women serving in the U.S. military. She emphasizes the three central arguments that people have brought up about women fighting in the military. The arguments she states are that women cannot meet the physical requirements necessary to fight, they simply don’t belong in combat, and that their inclusion in fighting units would disrupt those units’ cohesion and battle readiness. The 1948 Women’s Armed Services Integration Act built a permanent corps of women in all the military departments, which was a big step forward at that time. Although there were many restrictions that were put on women, an increase of women in the U.S. armed forces happened during
Elizabeth Van Lew was an upper-class woman born in Richmond, Virginia. She was born into a family of slave owners. She has the reputation of one being of the most successful and daring spies during the time period of the civil war. In fact she was described as more successful than the Confederate Spy Belle Boyd. Elizabeth was well known for helping Union prisoners escape and hide from Libby Prison. There are theories that believe she hid escaped prisoners in her attic. When she was at the prison, Elizabeth got intelligence from the guards who were in Confederate lines. She was skilled in communicating with the Generals of the War. Elizabeth used former slaves to relay her information in a variety of different ways, which she would then pass on to higher authorities. [civilwarstory.com] states, “Miss Van Lew's Richmond spy network was extensive.” The author is saying Elizabeth Van Lew had various types of people in Richmond getting more information for her. She used society connections to gather facts from the Con...
Furthermore, as war led to an increase in the number of injured men, there was a shortage of nurses, and women swarmed into medical universities to receive their educations so they could serve as nurses. In his “Universities, medical education, and women,” Watts states that when it was observed that women could “join the popular and increasing band of professional nurses. women were striving to gain university admission” (Watts 307).
Later, in World War II, there was another change in women’s rights. During World War I, women were unable to join the military; they were only able to help out as nurses and support staff; however, during World War II, women were able to join the military but were unable to fight in combat missions. In summary, as you can clearly see women’s rights experienced extreme levels of change during the 20th
They were considered no use to the society, because they were labeled as being weak. They wanted to be privileged with the same roles as the men did, such as fighting in a battle. The Civil War gave the women an opportunity to do something about their wants. They took action by disguising themselves as men, so they would be able to attend the war. The woman began to take part in other battles that occurred as well. Many of them were able to get away with the scam for a while, until they ended up dead or injured. Those who did not want to join forces and fight still managed to participate in the war in several other ways, like supplying them with things they needed. They decided to take control over things such as teaching jobs, industries, slaves, and family farms and businesses. Women from the North and the South volunteered as nurses during the
During the war, women played a vital role in the workforce because all of the men had to go fight overseas and left their jobs. This forced women to work in factories and volunteer for war time measures.
Because many men were involved in the war, women finally had their chance to take on many of the positions of a man. Some women served directly in the military and some served in volunteer agencies at home and in France. For a brief period, from 1917 to 1918, one million women worked in industry. Others not involved in the military and industry engaged in jobs such as streetcar conductors and bricklayers. But as the war started to end, women lost their jobs to the returning veterans.
Women Nurses in the Civil War." USAHEC.org. The United States Army War College, n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2013. .
Over 5000 volunteer nurses’ north and south served in military hospitals during the Civil War. Nurses were of all sorts and came from all over. Women wanted to be involved in this national struggle in any way they could. They did not want to stay home and play their traditional domestic roles that social convention and minimal career opportunities had confined the majority of their sex to. Many women thought of nursing as an extension of their home duties, almost like taking care of “their boys.” They recall the Civil War as a time when their work as nurses made a difference. It gave them an opportunity to prove they had the ability and courage to help.
Clara Barton’s ‘The Women Who Went to the Field’ describes the work of women and the contribution they made on the civil war battlefield in 1861. Barton highlights the fact that when the American Civil War broke out women turned their attention to the conflict and played a key role throughout as nurses. Therefore, at first glance this poem could in fact be seen as a commemoration of the women who served in the American Civil War as its publications in newspapers and magazines in 1892 ensured that all Civil War veterans were honoured and remembered, including the women. However, when reading this poem from a feminist perspective it can be seen instead as a statement on the changing roles of women; gender roles became malleable as women had the
These were the women who posed as men, so they could fight in the war, however this was not taken lightly. Berkin states that “women whose sex was discovered quickly were more likely to be punished severely, while women who saw combat before their sex was revealed sometimes drew praise”(60). For example, Margaret Corbin’s behavior was seen as nontraditional back then. Her husband was apart of the army and Margaret wanted to be by his side. She dressed in men’s clothing and at the heat of the moments stepped in for him when he got injured. Women were meant to stay at the house to cook or clean, not to fight in wars. Now, thanks to women like Margaret Corbin, women are fighting in wars overseas and allowed to be apart of the military or army without punishment. Women now have the right to be apart of any profession they choose and even have the same roles and responsibilities as
When the American Civil War began on April 12th, 1861, over 3 million Union and Confederate soldiers prepared for battle. Men from all over America were called upon to support their side in the confrontation. While their battles are well documented and historically analyzed for over a hundred years, there is one aspect, one dark spot missing in the picture: the role of women in the American Civil War. From staying at home to take care of the children to disguising themselves as men to fight on the battlefield, women contributed in many ways to the war effort on both sides. Though very few women are recognized for their vital contributions, even fewer are
excluded from a number of jobs for no other reason than stereotyping, ideas of the inferiority of women in combat, and the chauvinistic thought of if their not there it wont happen. Remember none of the reason that I listed above would be sufficient for a government employer to legally close jobs to women so why is it different in our Armed Service?
During America’s involvement in World War Two, which spanned from 1941 until 1945, many men went off to fight overseas. This left a gap in the defense plants that built wartime materials, such as tanks and other machines for battle. As a result, women began to enter the workforce at astonishing rates, filling the roles left behind by the men. As stated by Cynthia Harrison, “By March of [1944], almost one-third of all women over the age of fourteen were in the labor force, and the numbers of women in industry had increased almost 500 percent. For the first time in history, women were in the exact same place as their male counterparts had been, even working the same jobs. The women were not dependent upon men, as the men were overseas and far from influence upon their wives.