Daughters of the Union: Northern Women Fight the Civil War

by Nina Silber

Daughters of the Union casts a spotlight on some of the most overlooked and least understood participants in the American Civil War: the women of the North. Unlike their Confederate counterparts, who were often caught in the midst of the conflict, most Northern women remained far from the dangers of battle. Nonetheless, they enlisted in the Union cause on their home ground, and the experience transformed their lives. Nina Silber traces the emergence of a new sense of self and citizenship among the women left behind by Union soldiers. She offers a complex account, bolstered by women's own words from diaries and letters, of the changes in activity and attitude wrought by the war. Women became wageearners, participants in partisan politics, and active contributors to the war effort. But even as their political and civic identities expanded, they were expected to subordinate themselves to maledominated government and military bureaucracies. Silber's arresting tale fills an important gap in women's history. their patriotism as well as their ability to confront new economic and political challenges, even as they encountered the obstacles of wartime rule. The Civil War required many women to act with greater independence in running their households and in expressing their political views. It brought women more firmly into the civic sphere and ultimately gave them new public roles, which would prove crucial starting points for the late-nineteenth-century feminist struggle for social and political equality.

Genres: Civil War, History, American History, Nonfiction

352 pages, Hardcover

First published May 16, 2005

About the author

Nina Silber is a professor at Boston University, where she has taught in both the History Department and the American and New England Studies Program since 1990. Her research and teaching focus on the US Civil War, US women’s history, and the history of the American South.

Reviews

[Colleen Browne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This well-written, well researched book examines women during the Civil War finding that women were not emancipated by it through all the work they did outside the home, they learned just how restrictive their lives had been and continued to be. Highly recommend to those studying women's history or the Civil War.

[Joshua Van Dereck · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this profound work of scholarship Nina Silber makes a monumental contribution to the collective comprehension of Northern women's role in the Civil War and how it shaped the subsequent development of women's role in and rights within American society.

Silber points out near the end of the book that when women appear in popular culture Civil War stories (infrequently), they are invariably feisty Southern women. The role of Northern women, on the homefront, in the hospitals, working jobs in the bureaucracy, has been so forgotten in the lore and narratives of the war that it is shocking. Daughters of the Union sets out to correct this omission, adopting a broad intellectual approach—sprinkling in many snippets of individual stories, but generally approaching Northern women's experience thematically and conceptually.

One of the most difficult things for a modern student of history is attempting to conceptualize the worldview, norms, and attitudes of someone from the past. Silber devotes several chapters to these questions, dwelling on the Victorian cult of domesticity, the importance of religion in women's role in the family, the significance of being a person without legal standing outside of one's spouse... These are difficult issues to paint engagingly, tending to dissipate into soporific abstractions, but Silber does a remarkable job grounding the presentation of her research in concrete details that bring her observations and assertions to life through the voices of participants. Subsequent chapters look at concrete roles that women took on—nursing, sanitary commissions, teachers of freed slaves, etc.

Daughters of the Union starts out slowly, and I confess that I found it dry in the early going. However, as Silber passes from the broad assertion of her thesis into the concrete dimensions of the lives and world she has researched, she brings the past to life. The scope here is intimidating, but Silber manages to bring such vivid detail through the voices of her sources that I found myself frequently lost in daydreaming, working through the exercise of putting myself into the mind space of the speakers. Daughters is often upsetting—many of the nuances Silber points out underscore the oppressive horrors of 19th century patriarchy, and there were many times reading this book when I felt demoralized, reflecting on how far we still have to go to move past misogyny in America.

In the end, what more can you ask for from an academic history? The sources are lovingly collected and well reinforced by simple, confident prose. The thesis is compellingly advanced throughout the chapters. There is both plenty of clarifying exposition and plenty of primary source quotation. Daughters of the Union succeeds in the difficult task of both advancing a thesis argument and relaying a vivid narrative of the past. Bravo!

[Hans Myers · Rating 5 out of 5]

A detailed and well-researched survey of the experiences of Northern women during the American Civil War, Silber presents the argument that wartime activism among women helped to fuel - in bits and spurts - later women's rights activism of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era.

[Aisha Manus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book and easy to read without losing quality. I learned a lot from this book! Now o know why Silber’s name is often sourced in other books I have read! Top notch.

[Maddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for comps

[Ash · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I read this book, I was drawn into the lives of the women of this era. I was fascinated by the resilience they retained and the brave hearts they endured as the least patriotic of the two divisions of women during the war; southern charm and northern, cold-hearted women had always been the stereotype. Ms. Silber is able to speak to the student within her prose, her words and phrases are not complicated and the woman’s place during war is assumed from the very basic level of understanding. She is able to convey the transition the northern woman needed to implement when the men went off to fight in the Civil War.
In Daughters of the Union: Northern Women Fight the Civil War, Nina Silber brings to light the detailed stories of the women who lived north of the Mason-Dixon Line. She brings forth to the mind’s eye the complexity of women and their work during the war, whether it is on the homestead or supporting the relief efforts of the soldiers. Her stories reflect all social classes, reasoning’s and motivations of the women and how they presented themselves for the duration of the war. It wasn’t until the very last line of the book that I realized the point she was attempting to convey to the reader, "Beyond the Home and into the Nation" (2892), was that women should step out of the comfort of the home and envision the world beyond their own backyard. The author is able to convey to the reader that during war time women are the backbone of society and allowing the country to continue to function and flourish.
I did not realize or place into context the raw reputation northern women took from this war since most of the physical devastation occurred in the south. After reading this book I realized that after the Battle of Gettysburg the northern territory of this country did not incur any additional direct, devastating hits to cities and infrastructure. The devastation was limited to the southern region of the war and thus the southern woman was considered to be the stronger of the two. There seems to be an understanding to be patriotic a woman has to be physically laboring much as a man, thus they are supporting the war effort by helping rebuild infrastructure and continuing to plow the land. The author is able to show the reader that the northern woman was just as patriotic for laboring in the factories and helping the men in power preserve it as a functioning government. This effort could be seen as additionally significant as ultimately this government was paving the way for the future of the nation.
This book should be included with reading requirements for Civil War history classes and women’s studies. Even though Dr. Silber is speaking specifically about northern women during the war the themes and ideas can be spread out among history and brought forth to current day. Through her words the reader can begin to understand the importance of strength and courage of women during tough times.
(submitted as a book review for a History class, Fall 2014

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. Very readable.