Customer Reviews

All the Daring of the Soldier: Women of the Civil War Armies

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I am the author of "Memories of Maggie" and "Potpourri Of War" so I readily ordered this new book to learn more about the women who served during the Civil War.

"All the Daring of the Soldier" was excellent. It brought forth more women than I was even aware of who did so much for their country during the Civil War. Elizabeth D. Leonard should be proud of the work she put into her research and writing. This book should be a welcomed item to anyone's collection but especially for students to learn more women's history.

I only have one complaint. There was no mention of Dr. Mary Edwards Walker who also served during the Civil War and was ultimately the only woman to date to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor for her actions during the war. I hope this was just an oversight on the author's part.

BUT believe the rest of this book is wonderful!

Though the beginning of the book was a little dry, it continues to improve. It's greatest strength is the use of personal stories and accounts of those who actually knew the women.
As the book begins, many women are mentioned who had small, some might say even insignificant, role in the Civil War. This part is the book is the more dry area, but when the author, Elizabeth D. Leonard, begins to focus on the five most prominent women who helped to illicit information from the enemy, it again improves. This style of writing continues throughout the book, first mentioning several women whom not much is known about, then sharing the story of a well-known Unionist or Confederate female. Another strength of this book is the information that one can learn. I was surprised at some details and statistics provided. For instance, many women who brought information across enemy lines were able to do so through the use of their clothing as a means for hiding letters and even entire army uniforms. One woman strung hats and boots underneath her hoop skirt and kept letters in her hair. The statistic that six women were able to kept their pregnancy a secret (until delivery) while being enlisted under a male alias is shocking.
This book provides another look at women in the Civil War. Many believe, incorrectly, that only a few females were involved with either the Union or Confederate cause. As this book proves, however, that is not the case.
Overall, this book has an equal amount of interesting aspects, as well as dry moments. The "good" parts, however, are worth reading the book in its entirety.

Leonard's early chapters are good, though she misses a couple of prominent women. However, her chapters on "soldier women" are greatly disappointing. She can provide positive proof of only three women who successfully disguised themselves as men and fought during the war. All other cases she presents are based entirely upon anecdotal information. Her claim that 500-1,000 women served is entirely unsubstantiated. Leonard seems to accept the story of Loreta Velasquez even though her account has been disproven.

This reads more like a text book or research essay. It's a little dry for the casual reader who just wants to learn about the topic in their liesure time. It seems like author is trying to pack in a mention of EVERY woman who was ever involved in the Civil War, no matter how little information is available on them. However, it's an interesting subject, and some of the women are discussed in detail, with quotes from people who knew them. The detailed accounts are worth reading about.

Women soldiers, vivandieres, nurses and so on of the Civil War. More detailed than Hall's book, but still not a really scholarly text.

Various mentions of women in the American Revolution seem off-topic, with not much to show how they connect causally with the Civil War.

Women spies and scouts, real women soldiers (a few, with the presumption that many were never discovered), etc.

A lot of attention to contemporary literature and balladry concerning fighting women, though this work isn't deeply analyzed.

For me the most valuable part of the book was a fairly long discussion of how it was that women could convincingly masquerade as men in the 1860's. This was useful and interesting. Overall, though, there was only so much this book had to offer. I wonder if the limited hard evidence for female soldiers makes any book of this kind an uphill struggle. A new volume on the topic has just come out, and I'll be having a look at that.