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Title: They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War by De Anne Blanton, Lauren M. Cook ISBN: 1-4000-3315-2 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 09 September, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.47 (15 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Tough sledding
Comment: I'll read just about anything about the Civil War except Ph.D. theses, but the political agenda, constant repetition, and lack of significant detail make THEY FOUGHT LIKE DEMONS awfully tough sledding.
The introduction and chapter one are about as readable as the phone book. I almost gave up. Chapter two is a little better because Blanton and Cook introduce us to such stalwarts as Sarah Emma Edmonds, Albert D. J. Cashier, and Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, for whom they have extensive information. Edmonds wrote a best-selling memoir after the war; Cashier, who dressed as a man prior to the war, served out her entire enlistment without being discovered until she was sent to a mental hospital as an old "man," and Wakeman's letters to her family were preserved. The most entertaining of the three is the feisty Wakeman, who gets into a fight with a fellow soldier and wins. A picture section lets of decide for ourselves whether these women could possibly pass for men.
Rather than rely on the letters, memoirs and newspaper accounts they unearthed, Blanton and Cook spend much of the book dispelling such notions that most women who fought in the Civil War were lesbians, prostitutes or camp followers. They maintain that most of the women fought for the same reasons men did: for the money, for adventure and because of patriotism. But only 240 women can be proved to have served, most under aliases which were almost impossible to track. Blanton and Cook use a sample of 153. From this number they arrive at some rather suspect statistics. Forty-four percent were casualties; eighteen percent were captured by the enemy; their promotion rate was eighteen percent, better than the ten percent cited for men. We're talking over two million men here; I doubt a statistician would allow this sort of comparison.
Some chapters are rather funny. Take Chapter seven: "A Congenital Peculiarity," Women Discovered in the Ranks. Two were detected when an officer threw apples at them; they were in uniform but reflexively tried to catch them with their non-existent aprons. Another was discovered because of her feminine method of putting on her stockings.
There are certainly better Civil War books out there: CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC by Tony Horwitz and SLAVES IN THE FAMILY by Edward Ball to name two.
Rating: 5
Summary: Women warriors
Comment: I like this book. As a Social Studies teacher I am always looking for new information/interpretations of history to share with my students. To date, the subject of women as soldiers in the Civil War has been skimmed but no in depth information existed that I could find. This book is readable, informative and gives interesting information about how and why women fought and how they managed to avoid discovery. They Fought Like Demons provides that depth I've been looking for by providing the names and stories of many women within the context of the experiences of all soldiers in the Civil War.
Rating: 2
Summary: slightly biased
Comment: this was an interesting book, but it does not contain hardly any information on women from the south. there are some opinions expressed that show the authors are biased toward the union. so if you are searching for information pertaining to the Confederate women, don't read this book.
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Title: An Uncommon Soldier: The Civil War Letters of Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, Alias Private Lyons Wakeman, 153rd Regiment, New York State Volunteers by Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, Lauren Cook Burgess ISBN: 0195102436 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 1996 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: All the Daring of the Soldier: Women of the Civil War Armies by Elizabeth D. Leonard ISBN: 0140298584 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 27 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: She Went to the Field: Women Soldiers of the Civil War by Bonnie Tsui ISBN: 0762724382 Publisher: Globe Pequot Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Amazing Women of the Civil War by Webb Garrison ISBN: 1558537910 Publisher: Rutledge Hill Press Pub. Date: 01 November, 1999 List Price(USD): $12.99 |
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Title: Memoirs of a Soldier, Nurse and Spy: A Woman's Adventures in the Union Army by S. Emma E. Edmonds, Sarah Emma Edmonds ISBN: 0875805841 Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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