Class Notes 17.2b (NB p. 23)
New war-time roles for women –
Clara Barton –
Mary Ann Bickerdyce –
Susie King Taylor –
Harriet Tubman –
Skip two blank lines
between each one!
Belle Boyd –
Rose Greenhow –
Sarah Rosetta Wakeman –
Andersonville, Georgia –
Elmira, New York –
Causes of death for prisoners of war –
Lesson 17.2b –Women and
Prisoners of War
Today we will
describe how
women aided the
war effort and
discuss the
conditions
endured by
prisoners of war.
Vocabulary
• counterpart – someone doing as you
do, but on the other team or side
• exposure – effects of being without
protection from the weather
• dwarfed – made to seem small by
comparison
Check for Understanding
• What are we going to do today?
• Give an example of suffering from
exposure.
• Name someone who dwarfs you.
• Who is Mr. Murray’s counterpart?
What We Already Know
Thousands of men,
North and South, left
their farms and
offices to serve in
the armed forces.
What We Already Know
In the North, Lincoln’s
Emancipation
Proclamation led tens of
thousands of African
Americans to join the
Union army.
What We Already Know
Before the Civil War, few women worked
outside their homes.
Women Aid the War Effort
Read aloud
with me!
With so many men away at war, women in
both the North and the South assumed
increased responsibilities.
Women Aid the War Effort
Read aloud
with me!
Women plowed fields
and ran farms and
plantations.
Women Aid the War Effort
They also took over jobs in offices
and factories that had previously
been done only by men.
Women Aid the War Effort
Other social changes
came about because
of the thousands of
women who served
on the front lines as
volunteer workers
and nurses.
Women Aid the War Effort
Relief agencies
put women to
work washing
clothes,
gathering
supplies, and
cooking food
for soldiers.
Women Aid the War Effort
Battlefield nursing,
which was once done
only by men, became a
respectable profession
for many women during
the Civil War.
Women Aid the War Effort
Read aloud
with me!
Women also played
a key role as spies
in both the North
and the South.
Get your whiteboards
and markers ready!
12. What new roles were taken on by
women during the Civil War?
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
Nursing
Holding positions in the government
Cooking and laundering for soldiers
Working on farms and plantations
Working in offices and factories
Spying for the government
Choose the one that is NOT true!
Women Aid the War Effort
Before the Civil War, most
military nurses were men,
like the poet Walt Whitman.
Women Aid the War Effort
By the end of the war,
around 3,000 nurses
had worked under the
leadership of Dorothea
Dix in Union hospitals.
Women Aid the War Effort
• Trained as a schoolteacher,
Clara Barton was working for
the government when the
Civil War began.
• She organized a relief agency
to help with the war effort.
• “While our soldiers stand and
fight,” she said, “I can stand
and feed and nurse them.”
• She also made food for
soldiers in camp and tended
to the wounded and dying on
the battlefield.
Women Aid the War Effort
• At Antietam, she held a doctor’s operating table
steady as cannon shells burst all around them.
• The doctor called her “the angel of the battlefield.”
• After the war, Barton founded the American Red
Cross.
Women Aid the War Effort
• Mary Ann Bickerdyke was
a widow who made herbal
medicine before the war.
• Her study of natural
medicine, which stressed
the benefits of clean water
and cleanliness, is credited
with saving more lives than
all the army physicians.
• Bickerdyke volunteered to clean tents, set up
field kitchens and operate army laundries. She
brewed hot soups and prepared nutritious
meals in field kitchens.
Women Aid the War Effort
• Known simply as “Mother” Bickerdyke, she
followed the Union army and established more
than 300 field hospitals to assist sick and
wounded soldiers.
• During battles, “Mother” Bickerdyke commonly
risked her own life by searching for wounded
soldiers on the battlefield.
Women Aid the War Effort
• Susie King Taylor was an
African-American woman
who wrote an account of
her experiences as a
volunteer with an AfricanAmerican regiment.
• Married to a Negro
soldier, she moved with
her husband's regiment,
serving as nurse and
laundress, and teaching
many of the black soldiers
to read and write during
their off-duty hours.
Women Aid the War Effort
Read aloud
with me!
Like their Northern
counterparts,
Southern women were
also active as nurses
and as volunteers on
the front.
Get your whiteboards
and markers ready!
Which of the following women did
NOT serve as a Civil War nurse?
A.
B.
C.
D.
Clara Barton
Sarah Rosetta Wakeman
Mary Ann Bickerdyce
Susie King Taylor
What did Clara Barton do
after the war?
A. Helped to found the
American Red Cross
B. Organized the World
Health Organization
C. Became a wealthy
businesswoman
D. Was appointed
Surgeon General by
the president
Women Aid the War Effort
Women also played
a key role as spies
in both the North
and the South.
Women Aid the War Effort
Read aloud
with me!
Harriet Tubman
served as a spy
for Union forces
along the coast of
South Carolina.
Women Aid the War Effort
• The most famous Confed–
erate spy was Belle Boyd.
• Although she was arrested
six times, she continued her
work through much of the
war.
• After the war, Boyd became
an actress in England, but in
1869, she returned to the
United States and began
touring the country giving
dramatic lectures about her
life as a Civil War spy.
Women Aid the War Effort
A popular Washington
widow and hostess
when the Civil War
began, Rose Greenhow
used her feminine
charms to pass along to
Confederate officials
information on the
defenses of Washington
and Union troop
movements.
Women Aid the War Effort
She is credited with
providing General P.G.T.
Beauregard with
information resulting in
the Union defeat at the
First Battle of Bull Run
in July 1861.
Women Aid the War Effort
• Both the Union and Confed–
erate armies rejected the
enlistment of women.
• Women who wanted to serve
in the army disguised
themselves as men and
assumed masculine names.
• Because many of them
successfully passed as
men, it is impossible to
know with any certainty how
many women served in the
Civil War.
Women Aid the War Effort
• But at least 135 women
soldiers are known to
have fought in the Civil
War disguised as men,
although estimates
believe the figure to be
closer to 400.
• Of these brave women
fighting on both sides
of the line was one
named Sarah Rosetta
Wakeman.
Women Aid the War Effort
• Wakeman served from
April 1862 and fought in
the Battle of Pleasant Hill
in April 1864.
• She died from dysentery
on later that year.
• Her true gender was not
known until Wakeman's
many letters home were
discovered many years
later by a relative.
Women Aid the War Effort
Read aloud
with me!
In some areas of the country, women formed
Home Guards in order to protect the home
front while the men and boys were gone.
Women Aid the War Effort
Some of these groups consisted only of teenagers
and young women, who practiced and drilled and
made their own uniforms to look like those worn by
male soldiers.
Get your whiteboards
and markers ready!
Which of the following women did
NOT serve as a Civil War spy?
A.
B.
C.
D.
Harriet Tubman
Belle Boyd
Mary Ann Bickerdyce
Rose Greenhow
Civil War Prison Camps
Women caught spying
were thrown into jail,
but soldiers captured
in battle suffered far
more.
Civil War Prison Camps
At prison camps in both the North and the
South, prisoners of war faced terrible
conditions.
Civil War Prison Camps
• One of the worst prison camps in the
North was in Elmira, New York.
• In just one year, more than 24 percent of
Elmira’s 12,121 prisoners died of sickness
and exposure to severe weather.
Civil War Prison Camps
• Conditions were also horrible in the South.
• The camp with the worst reputation was at
Andersonville, Georgia.
• Built to hold 10,000 prisoners, at one point
it housed 33,000.
• A staggering 13,700 men died within
thirteen months at Andersonville.
Civil War Prison Camps
• Inmates had little shelter from the weather.
• Most slept in holes scratched in the dirt.
• Drinking water came from one tiny creek
that also served as a sewer.
Civil War Prison Camps
Read aloud
with me!
As many as 100 men per
day died at Andersonville
from starvation, disease,
and exposure.
Civil War Prison Camps
People who saw the camps
were shocked by the
condition of the soldiers,
comparing them to
mummified corpses.
Civil War Prison Camps
Around 50,000 men died in Civil War prison
camps. But this number was dwarfed by the
number of dead on the battlefronts and
even more from disease in army camps.
Get your whiteboards
and markers ready!
What were two of the nation’s
worst Civil War prison camps?
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
Bradenton, Maryland
Elmira, New York
Andersonville, Georgia
Paducah, Kentucky
Evansville, Indiana
Be sure to choose TWO!
13. Why did so many soldiers suffer
and die behind enemy lines in
places like Andersonville, Georgia
and Elmira, New York?
A. They were army headquarters, and as
such were targets for spies.
B. They were sites of early battles in which
black troops led the attack.
C. They were prisoner–of–war camps, where
soldiers suffered disease and starvation.
D. They were part of Lee's second invasion
of the North.