Excellent biographies have been written about Clara Barton, Sarah Josepha Hale, Julia Ward Howe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Harriet Tubman, but their lives have never been looked at together as they intertwined the Civil War narrative. Readers of The Better Angels can compare these successful women and discover common attributes and what was unique to each woman. Without leading troops in battle or wielding political power, these five women profoundly influenced the start of the war and its progress throughout as North and South clashed. Coming from varying backgrounds and with different skills, the women performed acts embodying truth, freedom, compassion, inspiration, and conciliation that helped change the course of the war. They were all independent, resourceful, and intelligent women who overcame the social and political climate of mid-nineteenth century America to play important, game-changing roles. The Better Angels explores the awakenings of these five women and how their lives were affected by the war. Each of the five women's stories is filled with times of joy, frustration, success, confrontation, disappointment, and satisfaction that shaped them as they found purpose and fulfilment during a devastating war. The Better Angels chronicles these watershed times as the doors of opportunity open for Clara Barton, Julia Ward Howe, Sarah Josepha Hale, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Harriet Tubman.

Harriet Tubman, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Clara Barton, Julia Ward Howe, and Sarah Josepha Hale came from backgrounds that ranged from abject enslavement to New York City's elite. Surmounting social and political obstacles, they emerged before and during the worst crisis in American history, the Civil War. Their actions became strands in a tapestry of courage, truth, and patriotism that influenced the lives of millions - and illuminated a new way forward for the nation. In this collective biography, Robert C. Plumb traces these five remarkable women's awakenings to analyze how their experiences shaped their responses to the challenges, disappointments, and joys they encountered on their missions. Here is Tubman, fearless conductor on the Underground Railroad, alongside Stowe, the author who awakened the nation to the evils of slavery. Barton led an effort to provide medical supplies for field hospitals, and Union soldiers sang Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic" on the march. And, amid national catastrophe, Hale's campaign to make Thanksgiving a national holiday moved North and South toward reconciliation.