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Full-Text Articles in Women's History
Ready, Aim, Feminism: When Women Went Off To War, Anika N. Jensen
Ready, Aim, Feminism: When Women Went Off To War, Anika N. Jensen
The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History
I like to imagine that if Sarah Emma Edmonds were my contemporary she would often sport a t-shirt saying, "This is what a feminist looks like."
Edmonds was a patriot, a feminist, and, along with an estimated 400 other women, a soldier in the American Civil War. Fed up with her father’s abuse and appalled at the prospect of an arranged marriage Edmonds left her New Brunswick home at the age of fifteen and soon adopted a male identity to become a successful worker. When the war erupted, she was compelled by a sense of patriotism and adventure to join …
A Woman In Soldier’S Dress: Then And Now, Elizabeth A. Smith
A Woman In Soldier’S Dress: Then And Now, Elizabeth A. Smith
The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History
This post is the second in a three-part series on women soldiers in the Civil War and during modern reenactments. Also check out the introduction of this series.
I was thirteen years old when I joined the 5th Kentucky Orphan Brigade, a Confederate reenactment group based out of south-central Kentucky. At fourteen, I “saw the elephant”—a Civil War term for seeing battle—for the first time as a soldier. It was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done, but seven years later I credit that decision to go through with it as bringing me to where I am now, …
Finally Speaking Up: Sexual Assault In The Civil War Era, Anika N. Jensen
Finally Speaking Up: Sexual Assault In The Civil War Era, Anika N. Jensen
The Gettysburg Compiler: On the Front Lines of History
Trigger warning: This article contains detail concerning rape and sexual assault.
On March 12, 1864, in the midst of a bloody war which had long overflowed its thimble, Margaret Brooks was returning from her home near Memphis, Tennessee when her wagon broke down in Nonconnah Creek. Not long after her driver left to find help, three rambunctious New Jersey cavalrymen, all white, approached Brooks, demanding her money. She was then raped multiple times at gunpoint [excerpt].