Mar 23 2019, 10:15 am in Women in the Civil War, Women in the Revolutionary War, Women's History Month
History.
I have a love hate relationship with history. I love learning history. I hate that it can be a less than accurate representation of what really happened. Why? Because history is being told through the lens of the writer. What they perceive. Their interpretation of the events, as an eyewitness, or of the facts from their research. Now, through the ages, history has been written by men. Stories told though the lens of a male eye. I’m not saying historians lied, only they rarely saw things from the woman’s point of view.
In the US we rarely hear about women in our early history.
I think of the women who came from all over Europe to settled North America. All the little mama’s, with children in tow, who had the courage to leave everything they knew, follow their husbands and get on a tiny, leaky boat and go to an unknown new world. They didn’t have a smart phone to check the weather, complain on social media the boat didn’t dock on time, or call an Uber driver to take them to an Inn. These women stood shoulder to shoulder with their man helping to build cities and colonize the wilderness. Traveling across prairies, mountains and wastelands in wagons.
I am fascinated in women’s roles in the American Revolution. How much do we actually hear about ladies during that time? There was Penelope Barker a loyal patriot of the American Revolution. Barker rallied 50 women— the first recorded women’s political demonstration in America—to sign a resolution boycotting British tea known as the Edenton Tea Party. North Carolina’s version of the Boston Tea Party. Don’t ya love it?
And there was Agent 555, an extraordinary woman, who was a member of the Culper Spy ring that George Washington says helped win the revolutionary war. To this day her identity is unknown. Anyone out there know?
For more stories about ladies in the Revolutionary War go here
Have you heard of Dr. Mary Walker? She is the only woman to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for her efforts to save lives during the civil war. Congress eventually revoked her medal saying she was a civilian and asked for its return. Mary, quite the outspoken character, refused and wore the medal proudly every day until she died.
Rose O’Neal Greenhow was a Confederate spy. A Washington, D.C., socialite, with friends in high places made her an excellent spy. Jefferson Davis said she was responsible for the South’s victory at the First Battle of Bull Run.
Frances Clalin disguised herself as a man, and she and her husband enlisted in a Missouri regiment. A wife and mother of three children, she fought alongside Union forces for a year.
To discover more about women during the Civil War go here
Rita
