In this groundbreaking reconsideration of the Civil War, the award-winning author invites us to see America's bloodiest conflict not just as pitting brother against brother but as a woman's war. When the war broke out, Union soldiers assumed Confederate women would be innocent noncombatants. Experience soon challenged this simplistic belief. The author reveals the vital and sometimes confounding roles women played on and off the battlefield. We meet Clara Judd, a Confederate spy whose imprisonment for treason sparked heated controversy, defying the principle of civilian immunity and leading to lasting changes in the laws of war. Hundreds of thousands of enslaved women escaped across Union lines, upending emancipation policies that extended only to enslaved men. The Union's response was to classify fugitive black women as soldiers' wives, regardless of whether they were married—offering them some protection but placing new obstacles on their path to freedom. In the war's aftermath, the Confederate grande dame Gertrude Thomas wrestled with her loss of status and of her former slaves. War, emancipation, and economic devastation affected her family intimately, and through her life, the author helps us see how fundamental the changes of Reconstruction were.
Stephanie McCurry Bücher
Stephanie McCurry ist eine herausragende Historikerin, die sich auf den amerikanischen Süden im turbulenten neunzehnten Jahrhundert spezialisiert hat, mit besonderem Schwerpunkt auf der Ära des Bürgerkriegs. Ihre wissenschaftliche Arbeit untersucht tiefgründig die vielschichtigen Geschichten von Frauen und Geschlecht und bietet tiefgreifende Einblicke in ihre Rollen und Erfahrungen. McCurrys rigorose Forschung und ihr analytischer Ansatz beleuchten die komplexen sozialen und politischen Landschaften der Vergangenheit und machen ihre Beiträge zum Verständnis dieser entscheidenden Periode der amerikanischen Geschichte unerlässlich.
