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STRESS, SUFFERING, AND SACRIFICE WOMEN POWS IN THE CIVIL WAR
Abstract
It is known that uniformed women fought with men and as men during the Civil War. Accounts note that several of them became prisoners of war (POWs). They were incarcerated in notorious camps that included Alton Prison in the North and Andersonville, Belle Island, Florence Prison, and Castle Thunder in the South. This article reviews their experiences in order to gauge the effects of their captivity. The impact of combat and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is considered.
"The prisoner of war experience is one few men and women are able to share. It is neither dishonorable nor heroic to be taken prisoner. Capture is usually an accident, part of what has come to be called the 'fortunes of war.' Often it comes as a complete surprise and is frequently accompanied by injury. Usually the confinement is painful and all too often fatal. In war, not everyone can be lucky. Some must lose. Those taken captive are part of the unlucky soldiers of misfortune.(1)
Women prisoners of war (POWs) can be included among these unlucky soldiers of misfortune. During the Civil War, they were found in scattered prison camps and sites around the country. Accounts of these women are few and frequently difficult to find as they are often buried in diaries, letters, and army records that do not reveal the true gender of the combatant. They are important, however, because they verify the existence of women POWs and demonstrate that they were subjected to experiences that ranged from the harshest conditions in the stockade prisons or pens to the less severe treatment in prison sites where they were housed in actual barracks or buildings.
Who were these women captives? What happened to them? What were their reactions to the trauma of war and confinement? This article poses several questions and attempts to shed some light on the matter of women POWs and the Civil War experience.
Women have fought with men and as men since the later Middle Ages. "A number of women also fought alongside male crusaders--and sometimes in male disguise--on the battlefields of the Middle East."(2) By the eighteenth century women were fighting on American soil in the Revolutionary War.(3) With the...