ABSTRACT
“True, women cannot fight,” Union journalist Gail Hamilton conceded, yet “the issue of war depends quite as much upon American women as upon American men….” Their primary duty, she argued, lay in cultivating a fierce brand of patriotism: “this soul of fire is what I wish to see kindled in our women, burning white and strong and steady … scorching, blasting, annihilating whatsoever loveth and maketh a lie….” (345–46). This militant vision of the female heart was a new one, and was in stark contrast to pre-war ideas about female delicacy. Women could scarce afford frailty during the Civil War. At the same time that the war fractured the polity, it wrenched families apart, disrupted household and social routines, upended both gendered conventions of behavior and notions of respectable work, and visited hardship upon legions of American families. Grief was everywhere; few were untouched by tragedy. And “home,” widely idealized as a haven, proved a challenge to maintain, both literally and as an ideal. With men on the battlefield, women on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line found themselves responsible for previously inconceivable tasks— both physical and emotional.
