5 9 civil war heroines

Civil War

Fascinating Facts
• Clara Barton discovered that a soldier she was treating

Heroines

was a woman. Barton helped the woman get back
together with her husband. The couple named their
daughter after Clara Barton.

• Because she became ill, Harriet Tubman was unable to
join John Brown in his raid on Harper’s Ferry.

• When Confederate spy Belle Boyd was returning from
Europe, her ship was captured by the Union navy. She fell
in love with a Union naval officer and married him.

Genre

Nonfiction

Comprehension Skill

Main Ideas and
Details

Text Features

• Captions
• Sidebar

Scott Foresman Social Studies

ISBN 0-328-14901-2

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by Joan Nichols


The Civil War was a difficult struggle. It used up the labor
and resources of Americans in both the North and South.
Many lives were lost on both the Union and Confederate sides.
How did women respond to the war? Read about some brave
and hard-working women who made a difference during the
Civil War.

Civil War

Write to It!

Write a diary entry for a woman of the Civil War era who
wants to help with the war effort. Have her discuss
the choices she has. Have her tell why she makes the
choice she does.

Heroines

Write your diary entry on a separate sheet of paper.

Vocabulary
free state
slave state
secede
home front
draft
regiment
courier

Photographs

by Joan Nichols

Every effort has been made to secure permission and provide appropriate credit for photographic material.
The publisher deeply regrets any omission and pledges to correct errors called to its attention in subsequent editions.
Unless otherwise acknowledged, all photographs are the property of Scott Foresman, a division of Pearson Education.
Photo locators denoted as follows: Top (T), Center (C), Bottom (B), Left (L), Right (R), Background (Bkgd).

ISBN: 0-328-14901-2

Copyright © Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the
United States of America. This publication or parts thereof, may be used with appropriate
equipment to reproduce copies for classroom use only.
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Opener: ©Bettmann/Corbis
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Editorial Offices: Glenview, Illinois • Parsippany, New Jersey • New York, New York

5 The Granger Collection, New York
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Sales Offices: Needham, Massachusetts • Duluth, Georgia • Glenview, Illinois
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Coppell, Texas • Ontario, California • Mesa, Arizona
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10 (B) Duke University, Rare Books, Manuscript & Special Collections Library,
11 (T) The Granger Collection, NY
12 ©Bettmann/Corbis
13 ©Bettmann/Corbis
14 The Granger Collection, NY


The Grimke sisters moved to the North, where they spoke
out against slavery. Many people criticized them, believing that
women should not give public lectures. Other people praised
them, because these former slave owners who spoke out so
strongly against slavery impressed them.
Sojourner Truth, born an enslaved person, knew the horrors
of slavery from her own life. Her height, sharp wit, and strong
voice made her a powerful speaker at anti-slavery meetings.

Even as a child, Sarah Grimke hated slavery.
She said slavery “marred [spoiled] my comfort
from the time I can remember myself.”

The Abolitionists
Some women were heroines before the Civil War began.
These women were abolitionists. They wrote books and
pamphlets against slavery. They spoke out against it in public

lectures.
Sarah and Angelina Grimke were two early abolitionists who
came from a family of wealthy slave owners in South Carolina.
However, they believed all people were created equal.

2

Angelina Grimke was Sarah’s younger sister. In
school one day, she fainted when she saw an
African American boy who had been badly beaten.

3


Two Harriets
Harriet Beecher Stowe was not a Southerner or a former
slave. She was born in Connecticut, which was a free state in
1811. In 1832 she moved to Ohio, which was also a free state
at that time. Kentucky, a slave state, was across the Ohio
River. This was the first time that Stowe came in contact with
slavery and escaping enslaved people.
She heard about an African American woman who carried
her baby across the icebound Ohio River. Stowe used this
story when she wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Her book appealed
to readers’ emotions. It made them see that enslaved people
were fellow human beings. The novel became a bestseller all
over the world.
Most abolitionists spoke publicly and wrote books to fight
slavery. Harriet Tubman risked her own life and freedom by
helping enslaved people escape. She traveled south eighteen

times, leading people
north, where they would
be free. She was never
caught, even though
there was a large reward
offered for her capture.

When President Abraham
Lincoln met Harriet Beecher
Stowe, he supposedly said,
“So you’re the little woman
who wrote the book that
started this Great War!”
4

Harriet Tubman, born an enslaved person, escaped in
1849. She was so thrilled to reach free territory that
she said, “I looked at my hands to see if I were the
same person.”

The Woman Behind the Song
You may have heard the song that begins, “Mine eyes
have seen the glory.” Julia Ward Howe had heard some
Union soldiers singing a popular marching song called
“John Brown’s Body,” about John Brown, a famous
abolitionist. She was asked to write different words for
that song. The next day she wrote new words for the tune
and submitted them to The Atlantic Monthly magazine.
Soon “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” was sung all
over the North.

5


The Home Front

Clara Barton

After the South seceded, the fighting began. On the home
front, away from the main battles, women fought their own war.
Many women worked hard and showed courage defending their
homes and supporting the cause in which they believed.
Almost half the men in the North joined the army or were
called up by the draft. So did about 80 percent of the men in
the South. These men left family farms and businesses for
women to run. And the women did, even when the war seemed
far away. There were shortages of food and clothing, especially
in the South.
Poor women had to go to work to support their families. They
did this by sewing uniforms and making rifle cartridges.
Women still found time to help the soldiers by joining
together to roll bandages, knit socks, and sew clothing for
them. Women also sent the soldiers packages of blankets,
sheets, towels, and food.

Clara Barton felt sorry for the Union soldiers because they
were not getting all the supplies they needed. The wounded
soldiers needed better medical care. On her own she sent out
a call for food and medical supplies. Friends helped her deliver
them to battlefields in Virginia and Maryland. She also helped

find soldiers who were missing and helped their families get
in touch with them. With this experience she later founded the
American Red Cross. Today this organization does the same
kind of work that Clara Barton did during the Civil War.

Sally Louisa Tompkins
Sally Louisa Tompkins opened a hospital in a friend’s house
in Richmond, Virginia. To run it, she used money she inherited.
Her hospital did such a good job healing the wounded soldiers,
she was given the rank of cavalry captain. From then on she
was called “Captain Sally.”

Nurses
More than two thousand women volunteered as nurses
during the Civil War. Most nursed their own husbands, brothers,
and other relatives.
For instance, Ellon McCormick Looby learned that her
husband Rody had been wounded. In 1864 she and her fouryear-old son John traveled from New York to Virginia to nurse
him. She continued working as a nurse in the same hospital
until the war ended.

Nurses and officers pose together in front of a
house that served as part of a military camp.
6

7


A Writer and Nurse
Have you read the book

Little Women? The events in it
take place during the Civil War.
In the book the mother of the
March family goes to a military
hospital to nurse her wounded
husband. Louisa May Alcott,
who was also a Civil War nurse,
wrote Little Women. In 1862
Louisa May Alcott
she went to Washington, D.C.,
to help care for the wounded.
A month later she got sick and had to return home. She wrote
about her experiences in a book called Hospital Sketches.

Laundress, Teacher, Nurse

Susie King Taylor

8

Even though Susie King
Taylor was born enslaved, she
learned how to read and write.
When she was fourteen, she
was freed by Union troops
before slavery was abolished.
She married Sergeant Edward
King, a member of the 33rd
United States Colored Troops,
a regiment of former slaves.

She lived with the regiment, which was a common thing
for women to do in those days. She did the soldiers’ laundry
and taught them how to read and write. When members of
the regiment were wounded in a raid, she nursed them. She
continued working as a nurse for the next four years.

Woman Doctor in the War
Dr. Mary Edwards Walker
wanted to be a doctor in
the Union army, but very few
women were doctors at that
time. At first the army refused
to make her a medical officer.
So she volunteered to work
without pay. When she did this,
she became the army’s first
woman surgeon. Later she was
Mary Edwards Walker
appointed a medical officer. In
1864 she was captured by the
Confederates and spent four months in prison. After the war,
she was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. This is the
country’s highest military honor, and she was the first woman
to ever receive it.

9


Spies

Some women became spies for the North or the South.
They learned important military secrets from the enemy and
told these secrets to military leaders on their own side.
Some women were couriers and carried messages across
enemy lines.

Rose O’Neal Greenhow
Because Rose O’Neal Greenhow had many important friends
in Washington, D.C., she was able to get information from them
secretly. Then she told the Confederate army what important
information she learned. The Confederate government sent her
on a mission to Europe as a courier. She drowned on the return
journey because her boat capsized. The weight of the gold
coins she was carrying to the South dragged her down.

Elizabeth Van Lew

Elizabeth Van Lew
Elizabeth Van Lew was a Southerner who was also a secret
abolitionist. She pretended to bring food, medicine, and
books to Union prisoners in Richmond, Virginia. She told the
Confederate guards she was just being kind. Actually, the
prisoners gave her important information, sometimes using a
code she invented.

Rose O’Neal Greenhow
10

11

Soldiers
At least four hundred women disguised themselves as
men and joined the armies of the North and the South. Some
women joined to be with their husbands or brothers. Many
served because they believed their side’s cause was just.
Others went simply for the adventure and excitement. A few
even worked as spies, and almost all of them served bravely on
the battlefield. Most of these women soldiers were found out
only when they became ill or wounded. Nurses often discovered
these women among their patients.

Loreta Velazquez was known as Confederate
officer “Lt. Harry T. Buford.” She wore a false
beard and mustache as part of her disguise.

Canadian Sarah Emma Edmonds served in the Union army as “Franklin
Thompson.”

12

13


This engraving shows the Freedmen’s School in
Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Teachers
When Union soldiers entered the South, enslaved people
flocked to them in search of freedom. But the enslaved

people also needed food, shelter, work, and medical care.
Most of all they wanted education, because most of them had
been forbidden to read and write. Now they wanted to learn.
Concerned Northern men and women came south to help
them, and many of the women became teachers.
14

Charlotte Forten
Charlotte Forten was the first African American
schoolteacher from the North to go to the South to teach
former slaves. She had a good education, and she saw the
need to help others. She taught on St. Helena Island, South
Carolina, and kept a diary of her experience.
15


The Civil War was a difficult struggle. It used up the labor
andGlossary
resources of Americans in both the North and South.
courier
a messenger
Many
lives were
lost on both the Union and Confederate sides.
Howdraft
did women
respond
to the
war?
about

brave
a law that
requires
men
of aRead
certain
agesome
to serve
and hard-working
women
who made a difference during the
in the military,
if called
Civil War.
free state a state where slavery was not allowed
home front the area or activities near home for a
country at war Vocabulary

Write to It!
Write a diary entry for a woman of the Civil War era who
wants to help with the war effort. Have her discuss
the choices she has. Have her tell why she makes the
choice she does.
Write your diary entry on a separate sheet of paper.

regiment an army group
with
a large number of
free
state

soldiers
slave state
secede to break away from a group, as the Southern
secede
states broke away from the United States
home front
slave state a state where slavery was allowed
draft
regiment
courier

Photographs
Every effort has been made to secure permission and provide appropriate credit for photographic material.
The publisher deeply regrets any omission and pledges to correct errors called to its attention in subsequent editions.
Unless otherwise acknowledged, all photographs are the property of Scott Foresman, a division of Pearson Education.
Photo locators denoted as follows: Top (T), Center (C), Bottom (B), Left (L), Right (R), Background (Bkgd).

ISBN: 0-328-14901-2

Copyright © Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the
United States of America. This publication or parts thereof, may be used with appropriate
equipment to reproduce copies for classroom use only.

16

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 V0G1 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05

Opener: ©Bettmann/Corbis
2 North Wind Picture Archives
3 North Wind Picture Archives

4 Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis
5 The Granger Collection, New York
7 ©Bettmann/Corbis
8 (T) The Granger Collection, NY, (B) Library of Congress
9 Corbis
10 (B) Duke University, Rare Books, Manuscript & Special Collections Library,
11 (T) The Granger Collection, NY
12 ©Bettmann/Corbis
13 ©Bettmann/Corbis
14 The Granger Collection, NY