Sarah K Nytroe
On March 4, 1865, following his second inauguration as president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln stood before a crowd of thousands who had gathered near the east side of the Capitol building to watch the ceremony, having braved morning rains and muddy streets to attend. Four years into the conflict that had torn the country apart, and just over a month before the surrender of the Confederate Army at Appomattox Court House, Lincoln used his second inaugural address to reflect upon the...
Female Spies
Throughout the war, female spies aided both the Union and Confederate war efforts. White women frequently relied on their feminine charms to disarm enemy soldiers and officials and convince them that they had no political motives. Allan Pinkerton, who created the U.S. Secret Service, explained that when the war began ''it was not deemed possible that any danger could result from the utterances of non-combatant females . . . That this policy was a mistaken one was soon proved'' Leonard 1999, 21...
Matilda Tillie Pierce Alleman 1848
Tillie Pierce was 13 years old when the Civil War broke out and almost 15 when the fighting came to her home in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where she was attending classes at the Gettysburg Seminary. During the summer of 1863, local girls shared the local rumors about Rebels headed for their town. With growing fear, Pierce observed people leaving with bundles of belongings and watched as the old men and boys who remained in town practiced their military drill. Fear gave wings to her feet and...
Sojourner Truth [Isabella Baumfree ca 17971883
Sojourner Truth was one of the most highly regarded and recognized African American women in the 19th century. In 1863, Harriet Beecher Stowe noted that she was impressed not only by Truth's tall, slender physical appearance but also by her clear sense of self-worth. An unstinting advocate of the rights of women and African Americans, Truth traveled widely in support of both movements. Truth was born into slavery as Isabella Baumfree around 1797 in New York State. Enduring harsh physical...
Media Accounts of Bread Riots in Southern Cities 1863
Wartime shortages and inflation affected everyone in the Confederacy, but they hit poor women especially hard because these women did not have the resources to combat rising prices and scarcity of food. In the spring of 1863, the crisis had reached a tipping point. Hundreds of women in cities across the South, frustrated with their government's perceived inattention to their plight, publicly protested the high price of bread and other necessities. These primarily poor white women voiced their...
About the Editor and Contributors
Andrew K. Frank is associate professor of history at Florida State University. He is the author of Creeks and Southerners Biculturalism on the Early American Frontier University of Nebraska, 2005 and The Routledge Historical Atlas of the American South Routledge, 1999 . He is currently writing The Second Conquest Indians, Settlers and Slaves on the Florida Frontier. Lisa Tendrich Frank is an independent scholar who has taught courses in the American Civil War and women's history at universities...
Mary Ashton Rice Livermore 18201905
Mary Ashton Rice was born to wealthy white parents in Boston in 1820 and received the education afforded to women of her class. In the early 1840s she spent three years as a tutor to children in Virginia. Her life on a slave plantation during this period opened her eyes to the horrors of slavery and formed in her a hatred of the institution. In 1845, Mary married Universalist minister Daniel Liv-ermore, who shared her belief in abolitionism and temperance. An accomplished author, she published...