Civil war 6
Civil war 6The United States Civil War: A Time of Change and Equality for All
The United States Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865, represented a time of major change around the world. This civil war that absorbed our nation during the mid 1860s not only fought for the rights of African Americans in the United States but for the rights and respects of African Americans around the globe. These times of fighting altered the lives of women living in a strongly patriarchal society by giving females a chance to live independently and successfully while their husbands were at war. American males came back from battle to find a stronger, liberated nation that was now influenced by voices in society that were muted just a few years before. No matter a person�s color, gender, background, race, or ethnicity, the United States Civil War affected every person around the globe.
If given a short background on the United States Civil War, one would learn this series of battles was based on a nation going to war over maintaining or abolishing the slavery of African Americans on U.S. soil. In the end, the Union armies of the North dramatically defeat the Confederate armies of the South, ending slavery once and for all with Abraham Lincoln�s Emancipation Proclamation. All these things might be true but very often the roles of women, blacks, and the white men fighting are forgotten. Every person in every country
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can relate to the battles Americans faced in the mid 1860s. The U. S. Civil War showed slavery would no longer be tolerated, setting a precedent around the globe of human equality. When the United States Civil War is spoken of, the real stories behind the action are often forgotten and misinterpreted.
Summarizing Drew Gilpin Faust, author of �Mothers of Invention,� when Confederate men marched off to battle, white women across the South confronted responsibilities that they were very unaccustomed to doing. Faust offers in her writings, a picture of more than a half-million women who belonged to the slaveholding families of the Confederacy during this period of crisis. Women of the plantations began to direct their husband�s farms, providing for their families, and looking over ever increasing restless slaves (Faust 6). It is argued that the biggest change in America after the Civil War was for the African Americans of our country, but at this time our nation�s women themselves got their first and legitimate taste of freedom. It can be said that the roots of the feminist movement began in 1861 with the start of this brutal war.
Quoting Dr. William Carrigan, Professor of History at Rowan University, �When men were away fighting in the Civil War, women managed the farms and took on the duties that their husbands once had. Women became individuals during the war� (Carrigan, personal interview)....
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