The O'Neal Genealogy Association Newsletter

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TOGA NEWS Volume III, Issue 11, November, 2003

During the Civil War women played an important, but mostly unrecognized  role. Whether the lack of recognition is an oversight by popular history writers or
whether women's roles were ignored because it's not a very glamorous topic is for the reader to decide. We've often read the glamorous tales of brothers and cousins meeting on opposite sides of the battlefield. We know of many brave and daring feats of common soldiers, and of the cunning maneuvers of the Generals. We all know who the Yankees were, as well as Johnny Rebel. We know baseball had it's roots in Civil War camps and many of us can recite words to common Civil War songs yet today. We all know of the death and carnage and destruction the men of Civil War times wrought and endured and our hearts go out to them, right or wrong, Union or Confederate.

But what of the women? This conflict surely affected them and their collective psyche as dramatically and grievously as it did their male counterparts. They saw the results of the battle carnage. While they were spared the horrific sights, sounds and smells of the actual battlefield encounters, they surely saw the paths of destruction that swept through their hometowns and villages as the armies passed through their backyards..For it was they who were left at home to keep the farms, homesteads and families running while the men went off to do glorious battle for God and Country. It was they who were burned from their homes, abused, sometimes raped and occasionally, needlessly slaughtered while trying to protect their property and their youngsters. It was the women who kept what little home, town and family infrastructure there was alive.

As a result of their husbands, brothers and sons going off to war, women had to assume more traditional "manly" roles. They were left at home with the children, the crops, the family business, etc. and were expected to not only maintain their more traditional roles, but also to assume the gentleman's share of the day to day chores of life. Sometimes this meant chopping wood, butchering livestock, sowing & reaping the fields, repairing the leaky roof, mending fences, managing expenses, etc.

In addition women were expected to aid in the war effort. They sewed flags and uniforms. They cut & prepared cloth for bandages, to await the injured soldiers after the battles. Many women worked without pay in the hospitals, which were all pretty much inadequate to handle the incoming casualties after a battle. Those who could read and write were called upon by injured soldiers to send letters home to loved ones. Some contained good news, telling a spouse that her husband would be home upon his release from the hospital, while others were gut wrenching accounts of soldiers who wanted to send a good-bye letter home to a loved one. Some letters were written home to prepare the family for the return of the husband, minus certain appendages.

Our "Rebel Rose" O'Neale was merely one among many women to volunteer her time in hospitals around her home in Washington DC. Rose's sister in law, Mary Greenhow Lee did the same near her home in Virginia. In her diary she speaks of the horrors of war and of the roles women played in the hospitals. She also speaks of the fears she had, alone in a huge house, bereft of a male figure, afraid to sleep at night, lest she be robbed, her home taken, or an even worse fate awaken her from her slumber.