Acting Her Part: Narratives of Union Women Spies
Lyde Cullen Sizer
Woman during the Civil War sometimes acted as spies both for
the North and the Confederacy. Female spies during the Civil War were thrilled
to be able to play a part in helping their side. Women smuggled weapons, medicine, and messages. Women were much less likely, especially
at the beginning of the war, to be searched by men. Messages were written on buttons and wound up in women's hair.
Newspapers circulated stories about women spies, some true
and some false. These stories
allowed women to challenge their gender role in the time period. According to Sizer, they represent
women's "ability to adapt to and to excel at an unusual test of courage
and patriotism" (Sizer 117).
These spies ranged from women who used their femininity as a
weapon to those who dressed up as men and concealed their gender. Pauline Cushman, her story narrated by
herself and other biographers, was been found to be an authentic union spy. She narrated her story in The Romance
of the Great Rebellion. Life of
Paula Cushman, Celebrated Spy and Scout was written by Ferdinand L. Sarmiento
in 1865. Cushman was an actress
who was challenging gender roles before the outbreak of the Civil War. One of her missions was to go behind
enemy lines and investigate Braxton Bragg's base to find out about him and
other Confederate generals. She
used her femininity and attractiveness to visit various camps with generals and
officers under the guise she had been banished to the South and was searching
for her brother, who was a Confederate soldier. She was captured and sentenced to death, but was rescued by
Union troops. She desired to
establish herself as a heroic figure after the war.
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| Union Spy Pauline Cushman |
S. Emma Edmonds was one such women that dressed as a man and at
first, fought as a soldier in the war and later became a spy. Edmonds also played the role of nurse
during the Civil War. When the war
broke out, she enlisted in the army as a man, under the name "Frank
Thompson". She worked as a
field nurse. She later desired to
take on a more ambitious role and became a spy. She not only dressed as a man at times, but also used other
disguises, like a slave or an Irish peddler. She was forced to put away her uniform and other disguises
when she became sick with malaria.
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| Union Soldier, Spy, and Nurse S. Emma Edmonds |
Harriet Tubman, an African American spy, was well-known and
used by the United States government.
She had been spying for twenty years before the Civil War began. She had escaped from her master from
Maryland and went to Philadelphia.
She returned many times and successfully rescued 300 to 400 people from
the bondage of slavery. She was
often sent across lines during the Civil War as a spy to bring back information
about the positions and conditions of enemy troops. She also assisted in the efforts to persuade slaves to trust
the Union troops who were coming in.
She did not desire fame or to be placed in a heroic position.
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| Abolitionist and Union Spy Harriet Tubman |
These women all played roles in redefining womanhood in the
mid-nineteenth century by taking on roles normally assumed by men. They were strong, smart, and courageous
and paint a more complete picture of women's roles during the Civil War.
"Since the War Broke Out": The Marriage of Kate
and William McLure
Joan Cashin
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| Confederate Family |
Scholars know little about how relationships between men and
women in marriage changed during the Civil War. Some scholars believe women's roles changed very little
while others object that the war gave women more opportunities for activities
outside of the home.
The marriage of one Southern couple, William and Kate
McClure of South Carolina, gives us some clarity as to what life may have been
like for married couples in the South during the war. William McClure served in the Confederate army and Kate
stayed on their plantation. There
was conflict as to who would run the plantation - Kate, the white overseers, or
male relatives. Kate began to make
decisions about the plantation, which William was not happy about.
When Kate and William married, it did not seem to be an
exciting occasion, nor did it seem she was in love with him. There does seem to
be evidence that Kate gradually fell in love with William. They had eight children and maintained
a typical marriage for the time period in which William made decisions and Kate
followed his lead. He ran the
plantation while she took care of the children. William was a radical secessionist and believed the North would
be easily beaten. Kate seemed to
agree with her husband's political views.
Typically in the South, the wives faced more changes and
hardships than the husband's who went off into the army. In 1861, William left
the plantation in the hands of a new overseer, B.F. Holmes. Kate purchased many of the plantation's
supplies hat September and often relayed messaged to the overseer. William was impressed with her capability
to help run the plantation. Kate relied on a slave named Jeff to help her. Kate
and Holmes sometimes received contradictory instructions, which created some
tension. Kate believed Holmes was
making mistakes, not planting enough food and planting too much cotton. By the end of 1862, Holmes was
fired. Kate put Jeff in charge of
food crops and the livestock and expanded her own responsibilities.
William was not comfortable with his wife running the
plantation alone. One of Kate's
in-laws hired a new overseer, Mabery, in early 1863. Mabery was not doing a
satisfactory job and Kate's responsibilities continued to increase. When Maybery's contract was renewed,
Kate was furious. The conflict
came to a head in December 1864.
Maybery became involved in a sexual relationship with one of the
slaves. He attacked the slave's
husband one night, who ran to Kate for help. In January 1865, Mabery disappeared, although it is not
known if he was fired or quit.
Kate was in charge of the plantation for the remainder of the war and
ran it with Jeff's assistance.
William hired a free black female to work as his cook and
laundress. Kate suspected William might be sleeping with her and expressed
disproval of the hire. William
made it clear to his wife that he would do whatever he saw fit.
William McClure never believed in his wife's ability to run
the plantation. Kate's confidence
in herself increased greatly during the war. It is unknown what, if any, long-term changes came to the
McClure house and to their marriage.
They did remain married for the rest of their lives.
The Children of Jubilee: African American Children in
Wartime
Peter Bardaglio
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| Slave Children |
One important and overlooked aspect of the Civil War is its
affect on enslaved children during the war and its later affects on their adult
outlooks. How did they see the war
and their condition during it as well as after?
Parents of enslaved children had little control over the
condition and protection of them.
Children still had respect for their parents and most times maintained a
relationship with them. One of the
hardest lessons a slave child had to learn was how helpless they were in
protecting their family members.
The child often saw two different sides to a parent - the one on display
for the master and the one they saw in the slave quarters. Parents were often hard on their
children in order to exercise their control on them and also prove to the
slaveholders the authority they had on their own children.
The mother of a slave child had more influence over the
development over their personality than the father did, although the father did
play a role. Slave masters
sometimes displayed their authority over the fathers by dividing families using
the slave trade. When a child was
born, after a month or so, the mother returned to the field and an elderly
slave took care of the young children.
The mother had little time to care for and nurture their new babies.
Many slave babies did not survive infancy. If the child did survive, they did
experience some measure of childhood, playing and exploring. They often played with the white
children who lived on the plantation.
Some of the games they played displayed the children had a clear
understanding of their condition.
At the end of the day, they shared a meal with their parents. At the age of five or six, children
were given chores. They entered
the fields around ten or twelve.
This entrance into labor was often distressing. They were rudely awakened by their
position and were often shocked by the severing of their friendships with the
white children.
The outbreak of the Civil War awakened hope for a different
life among slave children. They
wanted to know all they could about the war. They would often eavesdrop on their parents conversations
about what what happening. This
also changed the games the children would play to those that mirrored the
conflict.
Life changed for slave children when the war broke out. As the white men went off to war and
slave men left the plantation, the women and children's workloads
increased. They also were
sometimes taken further south as their masters tried to get away from Union
troops. Sometimes women and
children were left behind. The
impressment of black male slaves by both the Union and the Confederacy
disrupted the lives of the children.
Life became unpredictable. Although familiar with violence, the children began to witness
it on a much larger scale. When
the Northern troops arrived, the children were often initially frightened of
them because of stories they had heard.
They then grew fascinated with them. If the Union soldiers looted, it was alarming to the children. Children whose fathers fought for the
Union received an elevated sense of pride. Their fathers became their heroes and liberators. To keep black men from enlisting, slave
owners would often persecute the family's of those who did.
After the war there was a rush of formally enslaved who
wanted to formally be married.
Many went in search of their loved ones. An effort was made by parents to educate their children. Some slave children found it difficult
to leave the familiar lifestyle of slavery after the war was over. Some who hardly knew their parents were
devastated to be claimed by them after they were free. Young men tended to view the war in
more positive terms and young women often looked at it with anxiety on what it
would mean for them relationally.
Both sexes were left "with feelings of both loss and gain"
(Bardaglio 228). Most children,
despite the losses of previous lives along with the sense of security that
accompanied it, were likely overjoyed with their newfound freedom.
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