by Lisa Tendrich
Frank
The Civilian War explores home front encounters
between elite Confederate women and Union soldiers during Sherman's March, a
campaign that put women at the center of a Union army operation for the first
time. Ordered to crush the morale as well as the military infrastructure of the
Confederacy, Sherman and his army increasingly targeted wealthy civilians in
their progress through Georgia and the Carolinas. To drive home the full extent
of northern domination over the South, Sherman's soldiers besieged the female
domain-going into bedrooms and parlors, seizing correspondence and personal
treasures-with the aim of insulting and humiliating upper-class southern women.
These efforts blurred the distinction between home front and warfront, creating
confrontations in the domestic sphere as a part of the war itself.
Historian Lisa Tendrich Frank argues that ideas about women and their roles in
war shaped the expectations of both Union soldiers and Confederate civilians.
Sherman recognized that slaveholding Confederate women played a vital part in
sustaining the Rebel efforts, and accordingly he treated them as wartime
opponents, targeting their markers of respectability and privilege. Although
Sherman intended his efforts to demoralize the civilian population, Frank
suggests that his strategies frequently had the opposite effect. Confederate
women accepted the plunder of food and munitions as an inevitable part of the
conflict, but they considered Union invasion of their private spaces an unforgivable
and unreasonable transgression. These intrusions strengthened the resolve of
many southern women to continue the fight against the Union and its most
despised general.
Seamlessly merging gender studies and military history, The Civilian War
illuminates the distinction between the damage inflicted on the battlefield and
the offenses that occurred in the domestic realm during the Civil War.
Ultimately, Frank's research demonstrates why many women in the Lower South
remained steadfastly committed to the Confederate cause even when their
prospects seemed most dim.
About the Author
Lisa Tendrich Frank
received her Ph.D. in history from the University of Florida. She is the author
and editor of numerous works relating to the Civil War, including Women in
the American Civil War and the forthcoming The World of the Civil War: A
Daily Life Encyclopedia.
ISBN 978-0807159965, Louisiana State University Press, ©
2015, Hardcover, 256 Pages, End Notes, Bibliography & Index. $42.50. To
Purchase the book click HERE.
