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The civil war not only challenged people’s will to live but also redefined the roles of women and men. Women in the Civil War had contributed fairly to shaping its outcome.

In many ways, people’s lives had been changed during the Civil War – an inevitable outcome of one of the world’s most remarkably monstrous events. It hadn’t only devastated the United States but had also shifted the course of humanity.

How?

Among the consequential events, it challenged and shifted people’s gender perception. Although forceful with this change, the civil war further opened society to the idea that women could do more. With opportunity, they can be more. It has sparked the belief that women are as adept and enduring to life as men, able to withstand the pressure and blows it offers.

Weapons Were Passed to Men

The Civil War was an event nobody saw coming. Given it had a severity that extended to every corner of the state and nobody had foreseen this development, thousands of lives had to change in a snap. And a fraction of this reformation belongs to women.

The Bone Pile series is a trilogy book about civil war written by Sharon Traner. The book depicts a close-to-reality image of the war that ravaged the states of America. While a work of historical fiction, this series stays true to the war’s nature. It displays how a single complex conflict between two warring sides fully consumed and obliterated everything in its way.

Readers are shown the horrors of how people’s lives were altered during this period. Yet its accounts focused on the struggles faced during this brutality, emphasizing the effort that men have primarily given on the battlefield. Though this lens is consequential retrospectively, it doesn’t paint the whole picture. Not every battle is fought at the lines. Not every scuffle about the war is measured in the blood spilled and the lives it took. Instead, there are also minor triumphs that deserve to be honored.

So, What Happened to Women in the Civil War?

Though the event highlighting men and their courage is meant to be remembered, there are still stories of those left behind. Wives and mothers were forced to stay at home, waiting for the men to come back alive or to mourn. Women in the Civil War were primarily tasked to do one thing: wait.

Women caught in the crossfire couldn’t circumvent their involvement. They wouldn’t have been able to run away from it. Women in the Civil War were asked to be bystanders in the war for their lands and freedom. They were asked to remain homebound, manning their houses and caring for the households men were fighting to preserve. While men made an active difference, theirs felt passive, although integral to everyone’s safety and security.

In the grand scheme of things, women felt inactive.

It was only a matter of time until they’d had enough.

Women had grown tired of the roles they had to play. Instead of waiting, they wanted action. They wanted to be a part of things, not just for empowerment’s face but also for their freedom. Women in the Civil War had contributed fairly alongside men to the war’s success and conclusion.

How Did This Change Humanity’s Course?

As women sought more dynamic roles throughout the Civil War, society understood one thing: women are capable of doing men’s work. They may not be as physically strong as men, but they have the mental grit to be as enduring and passionate about their causes as their counterparts.

Women in the Civil War took on different roles within their communities and the field. Tired of their once passive contribution, women became nurses, and some even submitted themselves to the battlefield. In fact, they had been extremely passionate about helping the country that more than 400 women in the civil war disguised themselves as men to be able to fight in the armies.

Instead of succumbing to the function society had given them, women broke barriers and solidified their new social roles. They turned their attention outside their homes and took on the bravery to fight men on their own. If the event contributed to something, it’s the further development of equal rights and perceptions given to women.

Women in the Civil War may have been a matter enforced to women, a movement of desperation faced with both praise and criticism.

But it had opened everyone’s eyes to women’s full capacity.