by Murrel Bland
Many of the images of women during the Civil War have been the result of two popular books — “Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell and “Little Women” by Louisa Mae Alcott. Both stories became popular movies.
However, women played other very significant roles during this period. Diane Eickhoff, an independent author and editor, and her husband, Aaron Barnhart, told of this at a quarterly meeting of the Wyandotte County Historical Society Sunday, March 18, at the George Meyn Community Center in Wyandotte County Park, Bonner Springs. The program recognized March as “Women’s History Month.”
Eickhoff and Barnhart are the co-authors of the book “The Big Divide: A Travel Guide to Historic and Civil War Sites in the Missouri-Kansas Border Region.”
Eickhoff said that women were beginning to come into their own a few years before the Civil War. The Seneca Falls (N.Y.) Convention in 1848 marked the first meeting that focused on women’s rights. Women were forbidden to own property, sign contracts, serve on juries and vote in elections.
During the Civil War, women prepared bandages, cared for the sick and wounded and did laundry.
The story that had not been told, according to Eickhoff, was that women, both in the North and South, cut their hair and discarded their dresses, put on uniforms and fought alongside of men.
It was not known exactly how many women were in combat; estimates were from 400 to 1,000. One of the women who served was Sgt. A.J. Luther of Elwood, Kansas. She died in 1863 in the Battle of Vicksburg, Louisiana.
Eickhoff said many of these women combatants were farm girls used to hard work and handling weapons. One of the reasons that attracted women to combat was they were paid the same as men — 50 cents a day.
Eickhoff said that there was a shortage of male clerks in Washington, D.C., because many of them were off fighting the war; several women filled these positions. However, after the Civil War when the men returned to Washington, the women were dismissed.
Murrel Bland is the former editor of The Wyandotte West and The Piper Press. He is a trustee of the Wyandotte County Historical Society.
There is a family story in my family that one Marilda Stites married John Bailey and they went to war together. Both were born around 1845. She was born to Alfred Stites and Elizabeth Shaw Stites in Rushville, Indiana. She is on the 1850 Census in Carroll, Platte County, Missouri with her family. That is the last document I have been able to find on her other than a written family history that names her husband and the fact that they went to war together and died of exposure. I would love to prove this story to be more than a family myth. So interesting and I am sure a lot more women fought during the civil war.
Maydean Fetty Tilton