Social Impact of the Civil War on Women and African Americans

Social Impact of the Civil War on Women and African Americans

        The Civil War impacted all Americans.  Women and African Americans played significant roles in the war effort.  The war dramatically changed gender roles, for the first time in history, large numbers of women were forced to take on jobs outside the home to support their families when men left to serve in the military.  Aside from emancipation, the Civil War also affected African Americans through their participation in the war.  Women and African Americans performed heroic service, and at the same time, supported the war economy.  

        With the majority of the primary breadwinners off at war, women moved into traditional male professions.  Women were teachers, worked in hospitals, government services, and textile and ammunition factories to support their families.  Women managed family farms or plantations and assumed the physical labor previously performed by their husbands.  Slave women had to do their husband’s work in addition to their own plantation and household labor because the Confederate army impressed male slaves.

        Even in situations when women were not required to work outside the home, many women organized ladies’ aid societies to supply the troops with everything they needed.  They baked, cooked, and planted fruit and vegetable gardens for the soldiers.  They sewed and laundered uniforms.  Women organized fundraising campaigns and county fairs to raise money for medical supplies and other necessities.  Women patriotically recruited for the war.

        Women also worked on the front lines as laundresses and cooks.  Thousands of women served as nurses, assisting doctors with surgeries and providing medical care both on the battlefield and in hospitals.  Clara Barton became known as the Angel of the Battlefield.  She traveled with army ambulances.  Southern nurses even cared for wounded soldiers in their homes.  Some women even disguised themselves as men and served as soldiers in combat.   Respectable white women made successful spies because Victorian customs allowed them considerable freedom of movement and protection from bodily searches.  Belle Boyd provided critical military intelligence to Stonewall Jackson.

        Another way in which the Civil War affected women was by forcing more of them to become prostitutes to provide for themselves and their families after their husbands went into the army or were killed.  With thousands of soldiers confined in camps, prostitution was in great demand.

        In the North the official enlistment of US Colored Troops began in May 1863.  African American soldiers served on a limited basis in combat, in artillery, cavalry, infantry, and performed all non-combat support functions.  They also serviced the Union forces behind the lines as scouts, spies, nurses, cooks, and laborers.  Runaway slaves who had been servants for officers, laborers for the Rebel army, or lived near military installations provided useful intelligence.