Customer Reviews

They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the American Civil War (Conflicting Worlds Series)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This account of female combatants in the War Between the States is quite fascinating. The notion of women fighting for the Rebs and Yanks was something I had never even thought about, so reading this book served as a significant learning experience for me. Clearly, a great deal of research went into this monograph, and the authors do an excellent job of describing the significant limitations imposed upon the researcher into this topic. Military records are incomplete, especially in the case of the Confederate Army, and some women served without ever being discovered at all. In the case of many, there is no record of their real names. The best substantive evidence comes from those whose actual gender was ascertained while being treated for serious wounds or who really let the cat out of the bag by giving birth. It is quite amazing to me to learn that women in the late stage of pregnancy not only kept their gender a secret but actually fought fiercely in battle at the same time. Women soldiers were also captured and imprisoned along with men, many of them refusing to divulge their secret despite the fact it might well win them release from the terrible conditions of prison camps.

Clearly, one must ask why women chose to fight. The authors devote a lot of attention to this important question. Many women took up arms in order to remain close to a loved one, be it a husband, fiancé, father, or brother; many fought for truly patriotic reasons, fuelled by the same motivations as men to defend their land and way of life. Some fought for economic reasons, knowing they could earn much more money as a soldier than they ever could as females at home; some loved the independence and removal of Victorian restrictions that a soldier's life offered them. Indeed, a small number of women had assumed male identities before the war began as a means of enjoying a better life for themselves, and some continued to live as men after the war ended for the same reasons.

The aspect of this story that I found most interesting was the reaction of male soldiers and the citizenry to the role women played in fighting. To my surprise, contemporary men and women often celebrated these brave women who took up arms. The revelation of discovery often came as a shock to the female soldier's comrades in arms, but by and large they were very supportive of those who were unmasked; even years after the war ended, they lent a lot of support to female soldiers who sought the pension they truly deserved for their service. There was no shortage of newspaper stories about women soldiers during the war, and Victorian society was surprisingly supportive and proud of those women who were motivated to serve out of romantic or familial love or true patriotism. These idealized motivations appealed strongly to the romantic notions of Victorian society. Women who joined up for selfish, economic reasons, on the other hand, were often reviled. The well-known lore and widespread respect for female soldiers continued up until the days of World War I, after which society and historians in particular either ignored, ridiculed, or cast aspersions on the internecine women warriors, and it is for this reason that the history of these unique soldiers was largely forgotten over the course of the twentieth century, only reemerging as a substantive topic in the final decade before the millennium.

There is much of interest in these pages: the means by which women soldiers managed to keep their real identities a secret, accounts of women in battle and the ranks several women attained as a result of their bravery and skill, stories of discovery and reenlistment(s), accounts of women captives in the worst of the prison camps, reports of children born on the front lines, information on the lives of several of these individuals in the years and decades following the war, etc. Numerous anecdotes are as informative as they are extraordinary. One of the slight issues I have with the monograph is the way in which information on each known female soldier was presented in piecemeal fashion-motivations, experiences, discovery, and the like are treated in separate chapters; I would have liked a continuous discussion of at least one prominent individual. As things stand, it is difficult to achieve deep insight into any one such person's motivations, experiences, and thoughts as a whole. This is a small criticism, however, because this book really is excellent. Featuring voluminous footnotes and an impressive bibliography, They Fought Like Demons is a landmark achievement in women's history as well as the history of the War Between the States.

Neither the Union nor the Confederate Army in the Civil War authorized women to enlist or welcomed women combatants. Indeed, they were actively discouraged from the traditionaly male preserve of combat. Yet a small number of women had the drive to assume male disguise and to enlist and fight. This book helps tell their story.

The authors of "They Fought Like Demons" DeAnne Blanton, a military archivist, and Lauren Cook, of Fayetville State University spent more than a decade in researching primary sources to recreate the role of women as Civil War combatants. Their book tells us something about roughly 250 women soldiers, who fought either for the Union or the Confederacy.

The book spends a great deal of space on the motivations that caused women to disguise their sex and enlist. It finds that patriotism and devotion to their respective cause was the chief motive, as it was with men; but also finds that in many cases women enlisted to be with a male loved one, whether husband, lover, father, or brother. This latter motivation seemed important in the accounts and it seems to me different from the motivation of most male combatants.

The book gives good detail on women soldiers and, in the process, of Civil War military life. It describes how many women managed to avoid detection (of course, many were unsuccessful in so doing, particularly if they were wounded), the strength with which they fought, how they were regarded by their peers, both when they were assumed to be men and following the discovery that they were women, how women were treated as prisoners of war, in hospitals, and the extent of female casualties in the war. The book discusses the lives of some of the women after their career as soldiers -- one of the most interesting aspects of the book -- and it recounts some of the literature that was published about women soldiers during the Civil War era. There was more of this than I had supposed.

At the most basic level, Blanton and Cook make a convincing case that women fought in the war and contributed as soldiers on both sides. Women soldiers fought and sustained casualties at every major Civil War battle. I am a student of the Battle of Gettysburg and learned that a Confederate woman soldier died in Pickett's charge and that there were five women soldiers who were known to have fought at Gettysburg. There were also women prisoners at the notorious facility at Andersonville.

The organization of the book makes it difficult to follow the activities of most of the women in detail. This difficulty is also the result of the nature of the historical records. But two or three of the female combatants left memoirs or other records which perhaps could have been highlighted more effectively in this account.

It is worth remembering that there were about 2,750,000 combatants in the Civil War, 2 million for the Union, 750,000 for the Confederacy. Blanton and Cook document about 250 women soldiers and accept the general estimate of about 400 women soldiers serving in the War. This is statistically a very small amount. (One percent of 2.75 million is 27,500)It is also, of course, a tiny fractional percentage of the available pool of women. Thus, one should be hesitant about drawing broad global conclusions from this evidence. Blanton and Cook generally use their data wisely and circumspectly.

The Civil War remains the pivotal experience in our Nation's history. In many respects, it remains a shared American experience. Thus, it is good to have inclusive histories and to remember the role played by women in combat. Blanton and Cook show that during Civil War times, it was known that there were small numbers of determined women in the ranks. This book does a service by recreating this part of of our national experience.

Blanton gives us documented evidence of the many women who fought on both sides of the War Between the States, their motivations and how they hid their gender. Any reenactor who wants to portray a woman soldier should read this book, and it's also interesting for students of the war and those who insist women "can't hack it in combat."

I like this book. As a Social Studies teacher I am always looking for new information/interpretations of history to share with my students. To date, the subject of women as soldiers in the Civil War has been skimmed but no in depth information existed that I could find. This book is readable, informative and gives interesting information about how and why women fought and how they managed to avoid discovery. They Fought Like Demons provides that depth I've been looking for by providing the names and stories of many women within the context of the experiences of all soldiers in the Civil War.

When authors dare to delve into the subject of women as soldiers during the 1860's, they are bound to run into roadblocks and resistance. So much of the information, even in the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, ends with the female in question being anonymous. This quite simply is a result of her enlisting under a male name and dying before she is "found out". Blanton and Cook have made what could be a dull study into fascinating reading. Any person can say "I would have presented the information differently" and perhaps they would; but the facts cannot be changed any more than one can change history.
Thank goodness there are folks that care enough to study and tell HERstory as well as history.

Last year I took out a book of Photographs on Women in American History and the Photo of the female soilder on the front cover of " They fought like Demons" was included inside only there she was listed as anonymous and there was no story. The photo has haunted me.

Less than a month ago I walked into the Public Library and this book was staring at me from the recently purchased shelves.

I am still reeling from all the information that I had digested.In retrospect, I look at American History so differently and wonder why this is not part of our mainstream cultural history .How does this get placed into our American history books. Girls need heroines and here they are. Lets start writing about them,creating documentaries about them, making films about them.

Lets put them back into the history books.

I have read They Fought Like Demons . . . and loved every word of the test. I,too, have spent 2 1/2 years conducting research on female soliders of the Civil War. Blanton's and Cook's book has provided much needed informtion for my research. Whereas, They Fought Like Demons, is written for adults, I am focusing on 5 key women in the Civil War in writing a book for children. I am a university professor who teaches elementary and middle school social studies methods and have found it truly amazing that children as well as adults have no idea that women disguised themselves as men to fight in the Civil War. I am also a storyteller and share many stories about these various women in schools, roundtables,churches, and other organizations.

The point of Blanton's and Cook's book is to provide and enlighten the reader with information on women who disguised themselves as soldiers to fight in the Civil War. It is NOT intended to provide an INDEPTH review of women in the war. NO book can provide that information unless it is fiction. The authors have not attempted, but have done a great job of undetaking a monumental task of documenting as many women as possible who did fight in the war. Many of these women were unknown and it is virtually impossible to find out who they were or where they were from.

I highley commend these ladies for their wonderful product and want to thank them for providing me with information that would have taken me another five or six years to complete.

Dr. Judy C. Pierce
Professor
Western Kentucky University

We Fought Like Demons is a very informative book on women soldiers in the Civil War. The book discusses the different identities women took and what roles they played in their troops. Some were detectives, some were nurses, some were spys, and some were even brought up to the role as lieutenant. DeAnne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook do a good job on going into great detail with each individual woman soldier. I enjoyed it and I think other readers will too.

They Fought Like demons is a great book that tells about women portraying men in the Civil War. This book is very informative and helped make the fact that women fought in the Civil War as well as men noticed. In text books the fact that woman fought in war is glided over and not highlighted. With this book you can learn about all of the women that were nurses, detectives, and even lutenents. Although if you are looking for a book that is only about the Civil War in general, this is not the book for you. Although They Fought Like Demons is an entertaining book, it also has its slow parts. The book goes from exciting to slow to exciting and back to slow again. But it is still a great book. One part I find interesting is the appendix. It shares information about other books such as The Lady Lieutenant, a love story, and Castine, Also a form of a love story. The appendix has a summary of both books and has encouraged me to read both of those also. All in all I think They Fought Like Demons is a wonderful book that expresses the acomplishments and hardships of woman in the Civil War, and also helps enlighten us about at least some of the women involved in the American Civil War.

This is an excellent book which has been thouroughly researched. The authors carefully support their information with documentation. It is well written and scholarly. It is for the hobbyist and historian, especially women who enjoy Civil War history.