Women of the Civil War

Women and African Americans involvement in the Civil War

Taking a look inside South Carolina during the war

Women in the Civil War

Open Ended

What roles do you think women played a part in during the Civil War?

Female Soldiers in the Civil War

• The outbreak of the Civil War challenged traditional American notions of femininity. With hundreds of examples of courage, diligence, and self-sacrifice in battle. The war was a formative moment in the early feminist movement.

• The amount of female soldiers in the Civil War was somewhere between 400 and 750. 

Female Soldiers in the Civil War

• Women who fought in the Civil War shared the same motivations as their male companions. Some women went to war in order to share in the trials of their loved ones. Others were stirred by a thirst for adventure, and the promise of reliable wages.

• Frances Clayton disguised herself as "Frances Clalin" to fight in the Civil War.

Poll

If you had to disguise yourself to fight for something you believed in would you? Even if it meant there was a possibility in losing your life?

• Yes

• No

The Lives of African-American Slaves in Carolina During  the Civil War

• South Carolina had a clear black majority from about 1708 through most of the eighteenth century

• Majority of enslaved African Americans lived in wall-trench structure, Huts built of upright poles set in a trench and covered in clay

• Many Slave owners changed the environment slaves lived in, in order to prevent angering abolitionist.

Since so much of the slaves' lives were spent outside their houses, archaeologists are also discovering that the slave settlements often exhibit outdoor hearths, or places where the African-Americans prepared their food.

Their diet mostly included plants and dirty rice. It was plentiful and was the staple of the slave diet. Meat was probably a relatively uncommon luxury  

African American soldiers in the Civil War

 African-American Soldiers

• Despite wanting to end slavery, people in the North did not want African-Americans to become part of the army.

• Some abolitionists, such as Frederick Douglass, argued that African-Americans should be allowed to fight.

The first black regiments

• The first black regiments played an important role. Many white people believed that the former slaves would not be brave enough to fight in battle. The first black regiments proved them wrong. They fought with courage and bravery in the face of gunfire and death.

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 African-American Soldiers

As the war continued, more black soldiers enlisted to fight for the North. They became a major part of the Union armed forces. By the end of the war, around 180,000 African-Americans had fought making a major difference and helping the North to win the war.

Open Ended

Tell me something you learned today?