Women and American Civil War: North-South Counterpoints

Scholarly review of eight paired essays that showcase and compare the experiences of Northern and Southern women in the U.S. Civil War. Women and American Civil War focuses on women’s politics, wartime mobilization, emancipation, wartime relief, women and families, religion, reconstruction, and Civil War memory. Judith Giesberg and Randall Miller analyze the women’s lives, interests and engagement in public issues and private concerns. Some of their questions include: How did women’s growing suspicions about the wartime state intrude on the state’s ability to prosecute war? How was gender recast in the aftermath of emancipation? And how did women define and even direct the trajectory of war and its meaning? (Kent State University Press)