With The Weaker Sex in War, Kristen Brill shows how white women's wartime experiences shaped Confederate political culture-and the ways in which Confederate political culture shaped their wartime experiences. These white women had become passionate supporters of independence to advance the cause of Southern nationalism and were used by Confederate leadership to advance the cause. These women, drawn from the middle and planter class, played an active, deliberate role in the effort. They became knowing and keen participants in shaping and circulating a gendered nationalist narrative, as both actors for and symbols of the Confederate cause. Through their performance of patriotic devotion, these women helped make gender central to the formation of Confederate national identity, to an extent previously unreckoned with by scholars of the Civil War era.In this important and original work, Brill weaves together individual women's voices in the private sphere, collective organizations in civic society, and political ideology and policy in the political arena. A signal contribution to an increasingly rich vein of historiography, The Weaker Sex in War provides a definitive take on white women and political culture in the Confederacy.

Elite Confederate Women in the American Civil War is a wide-ranging primary source collection that offers a compelling selection of upper-class, white Confederate women's voices from archives across the South. From the prison diary of Mary Terry to Elizabeth Baker Crozier's eyewitness account of the siege of Knoxville, this volume introduces lesser-known voices of the war to show the interconnections between the home front and the front lines, and how the war shaped the lives of women and households across the South. This collection challenges students to engage with the role of first-person narratives in history and to reconsider the roles of southern women in the Civil War. Exploring the themes of slavery, nationalism, secession and occupation, these narratives offer new ways to think about traditional issues in Civil War history and, more broadly, show the ways in which studies of women and gender can enrich studies of cultures of war. This book is designed for undergraduate and graduate students of both the American Civil War and women's history.

Elite Confederate Women in the American Civil War is a wide-ranging primary source collection that offers a compelling selection of upper-class, white Confederate women's voices from archives across the South. From the prison diary of Mary Terry to Elizabeth Baker Crozier's eyewitness account of the siege of Knoxville, this volume introduces lesser-known voices of the war to show the interconnections between the home front and the front lines, and how the war shaped the lives of women and households across the South. This collection challenges students to engage with the role of first-person narratives in history and to reconsider the roles of southern women in the Civil War. Exploring the themes of slavery, nationalism, secession and occupation, these narratives offer new ways to think about traditional issues in Civil War history and, more broadly, show the ways in which studies of women and gender can enrich studies of cultures of war. This book is designed for undergraduate and graduate students of both the American Civil War and women's history.

With The Weaker Sex in War, Kristen Brill shows how white women's wartime experiences shaped Confederate political culture-and the ways in which Confederate political culture shaped their wartime experiences. These white women had become passionate supporters of independence to advance the cause of Southern nationalism and were used by Confederate leadership to advance the cause. These women, drawn from the middle and planter class, played an active, deliberate role in the effort. They became knowing and keen participants in shaping and circulating a gendered nationalist narrative, as both actors for and symbols of the Confederate cause. Through their performance of patriotic devotion, these women helped make gender central to the formation of Confederate national identity, to an extent previously unreckoned with by scholars of the Civil War era.In this important and original work, Brill weaves together individual women's voices in the private sphere, collective organizations in civic society, and political ideology and policy in the political arena. A signal contribution to an increasingly rich vein of historiography, The Weaker Sex in War provides a definitive take on white women and political culture in the Confederacy.