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3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
Just finished some Great books, and it did not compare. I think I may finish it some day. It is historical non fiction with great information. Perhaps the timing isn't right for me at this time.
I've had this book on my Kindle for a while and finally read it this summer. I've read another book by the author and enjoyed it and the topic of this one was intriguing, so I picked it up and ended up learning a lot from the book.
Four different women who played different roles during the Civil War are highlighted here, from the woman who played the part of a man to become a soldier to the women who used their feminine wiles on both sides of the conflict to gain advantages. There is a lot of material in this book, and lots of primary sources, making it not only good storytelling but well-researched at that.
I found some confusion at the beginning when switching between the women's stories, especially those that were more similar than not (the soldier was always clear!), but that settled down as the book went on and more detail was provided. I found the descriptions edifying and interesting on both sides of the conflict, showing the revulsion and the honor that could be found by the same person just a few miles in distance apart at different times. The journey to Europe and running of the blockades was also interesting and provided a more external viewpoint of the conflict which I also found intriguing.
If you have an interest in the Civil War or in women's roles historically, this is a great read. It's a solid book, well-written, interesting, and I enjoyed the heck out of it. I'd like to rank it 4.5 stars but round down because it's not quite a 5.
Four different women who played different roles during the Civil War are highlighted here, from the woman who played the part of a man to become a soldier to the women who used their feminine wiles on both sides of the conflict to gain advantages. There is a lot of material in this book, and lots of primary sources, making it not only good storytelling but well-researched at that.
I found some confusion at the beginning when switching between the women's stories, especially those that were more similar than not (the soldier was always clear!), but that settled down as the book went on and more detail was provided. I found the descriptions edifying and interesting on both sides of the conflict, showing the revulsion and the honor that could be found by the same person just a few miles in distance apart at different times. The journey to Europe and running of the blockades was also interesting and provided a more external viewpoint of the conflict which I also found intriguing.
If you have an interest in the Civil War or in women's roles historically, this is a great read. It's a solid book, well-written, interesting, and I enjoyed the heck out of it. I'd like to rank it 4.5 stars but round down because it's not quite a 5.
Once upon a time, I read as much Civil War historical fiction as I could get my hands on. This is nonfiction, but took me right back to that part of my reading life. It's crazy to me that I could once name generals and politicians of the era left and right but had no awareness of the extent to which these women played their respective roles in gathering information for their sides.
3.5 stars—it took me a while to get into it, and I was a little annoyed when it strayed from verifiable facts, but overall extremely interesting. I am disappointed that even though I grew up in Virginia, I did not learn anything about women’s roles in the civil war.
In the vein of Erik Larson, but not quite as good. One of the women's stories is particularly interesting.
I really enjoyed this more than I thought I would. It was well-written, intriguing, and made me realize though I have been educated in the US, I know very little about the Civil War.
adventurous
informative
medium-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gore, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Violence, Blood, Medical content, War, Injury/Injury detail
informative
reflective
medium-paced
While I thought the four stories of the women during the Civil War were interesting, I wasn't pulled in enough in order to finish the book. I don't want to get stuck in a rut and not meet my 2015 goal of reading at least 15 books, so I decided to put this one down and start another.
Civil War buffs and those interested in 19th century and women's history will definitely want to check out this book. Knowledge of the Civil War is not required to enjoy it.
Abbott traces the heroic actions of four women during the Civil War. Two for the North and two for the South.
For the South:
Belle Boyd and Rose O'Neal Greenhow.
In 1861 Boyd was 17, a bold, adventurous girl from Virginia. Her story begins when she shoots a Yankee at point blank range and doesn't bat an eye.
Greenhow was 43 in 1861, a widow deeply intrenched in the politics of Washington, D.C. who used her connections to head a spy ring, passing on important information about northern plans to southern leadership.
Both women are depicted as boisterously committed to their cause, but both also seemed to have a need of self-aggrandizement that made me, at times, roll my eyes at their words.
For the North:
Emma Edmonds, aka, Franklin Thompson and Elizabeth Van Lew.
In 1861 Edmonds was 19 and had already been living as a man. Originally from Canada she enlisted in the northern army in Michigan as a man and served as a battlefield nurse, then as a letter carrier, and finally as a spy.
Van Lew was 43 at the outbreak of the war, a wealthy Virginia "spinster" and abolitionist with deep ties to the North who helped northern soldiers and slaves escape and became the head of a spy network, passing on important information about southern plans to northern leadership.
Both of these women are portrayed as more cautious and less flamboyant than their southern counterparts and come off as being much more grounded.
There's a fifth woman involved who should be given accolades. No matter the risks taken by Boyd, Greenhow, Edmondson, and Van Lew, they were all white women which meant they'd perhaps have at least a chance of talking their way out of trouble if caught. It was war and spies were executed, so I don't mean to belittle their risks, but Mary Jane Bowser, on the other hand, was born a slave to the Van Lew family. She was freed after Elizabeth's father died and educated in Philadelphia. She'd been working as a servant for Elizabeth who asked her to go undercover as a slave servant and act as a sleeper agent in the home of not just any high ranking confederate, but in the mansion of Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy. Intense, right?
While chronologically weaving the story of these women, Abbott includes tidbits about the war and what conditions were like for soldiers and civilians. Like how "depraved hucksters" sold "Yankee skulls" and rebel women wore brooches made out of the bones of soldiers scavenged from battlefields.
One of the most startling mentions was about a widow who was too sick to move from her bed and whose house happened to be in the middle of the battlefield at Manassas. Her foot was shot off during the fighting and she died the next day.
There is also a scene where Edmons/Thompson undergoes a physical examination to become a spy. She worried about her sex being uncovered, but the focus of the exam was on her head. Phrenology was supposed to reveal one's character:
She silently prayed that her head did not betray her sex; phrenological studies on women often concluded that their organs of "adhesiveness," cautiousness, and procreation were so prominent as to elongate, and even deform, the middle of the back of the head. The doctor poked and prodded with his caliper and scratched notes on a pad. Emma felt stifled inside her frock coat, drops of sweat sliding down between her breasts. He determined, finally, that Frank Thompson indeed had the head of a man, with "largely developed" organs of secretiveness and combativeness. Emma acted as though she'd expected to hear as much, and took the oat of allegiance.
Famous figures of the time make their way into the story and add to its richness: Nathaniel Hawthorne is mentioned as are Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, and Mary Chestnut. Thomas Carlyle plays a role, as does Napoleon III. Then there's Pinkerton and his crew, including at least one female detective. As always, Mary Todd Lincoln is mocked for her plainness and northern General McClellan is portrayed as a do-nothing general. However, on the southern side of the fence, instead of General Lee stealing the show Stonewall Jackson gets much more ink in this book.
This is a thick book, 544 pages, and at times it felt like it. It seems that the repetitive structure of going back and forth between four stories and the lack of a sharper unifying drive within the narrative made it was slow going here & there. However, the book was never a slog to get through, it simply isn't a swift historical narrative so don't expect a read like, say, The Devil in the White City.
One historical inaccuracy jumped out at me from the second page of the preface where Abbott sets the scene of troops pouring into each capital in the spring of 1861. She mentions that "taps" is played at night. That gave me pause because having read The Killer Angels earlier this summer where the bugle calls of General Butterfield are discussed and which led me to read a bit more about Butterfield, it is well documented that Taps wasn't written until July 1862. Some may excuse this as a minor inaccuracy, but it did cause me to be on guard as a reader.
For example, Abbott makes a point of stating that she didn't make up any dialog, but she did, it seems, imagine scenes that, while adding some spice (such as Belle waiting for General Butler with her hands on her hips and impatiently tapping her foot) or giving closure to a section (like Rose "spreading" her daughter across her lap to tell her a story and making sure the good guys win) also caused me to stop and wonder if these things really happened. Leaving the flow of a narrative to check footnotes for documentation is not something a storyteller wants the reader to do on a regular basis.
The above are minor complaints compared to the overall enjoyment of reading about these courageous women who risked their lives to fight for what they believed in. This is an engaging and important book, one that shows women's active participation in the waging of warfare long before they had the right to vote.
(review copy, read for TLC Book Tours)
Abbott traces the heroic actions of four women during the Civil War. Two for the North and two for the South.
For the South:
Belle Boyd and Rose O'Neal Greenhow.
In 1861 Boyd was 17, a bold, adventurous girl from Virginia. Her story begins when she shoots a Yankee at point blank range and doesn't bat an eye.
Greenhow was 43 in 1861, a widow deeply intrenched in the politics of Washington, D.C. who used her connections to head a spy ring, passing on important information about northern plans to southern leadership.
Both women are depicted as boisterously committed to their cause, but both also seemed to have a need of self-aggrandizement that made me, at times, roll my eyes at their words.
For the North:
Emma Edmonds, aka, Franklin Thompson and Elizabeth Van Lew.
In 1861 Edmonds was 19 and had already been living as a man. Originally from Canada she enlisted in the northern army in Michigan as a man and served as a battlefield nurse, then as a letter carrier, and finally as a spy.
Van Lew was 43 at the outbreak of the war, a wealthy Virginia "spinster" and abolitionist with deep ties to the North who helped northern soldiers and slaves escape and became the head of a spy network, passing on important information about southern plans to northern leadership.
Both of these women are portrayed as more cautious and less flamboyant than their southern counterparts and come off as being much more grounded.
There's a fifth woman involved who should be given accolades. No matter the risks taken by Boyd, Greenhow, Edmondson, and Van Lew, they were all white women which meant they'd perhaps have at least a chance of talking their way out of trouble if caught. It was war and spies were executed, so I don't mean to belittle their risks, but Mary Jane Bowser, on the other hand, was born a slave to the Van Lew family. She was freed after Elizabeth's father died and educated in Philadelphia. She'd been working as a servant for Elizabeth who asked her to go undercover as a slave servant and act as a sleeper agent in the home of not just any high ranking confederate, but in the mansion of Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederacy. Intense, right?
While chronologically weaving the story of these women, Abbott includes tidbits about the war and what conditions were like for soldiers and civilians. Like how "depraved hucksters" sold "Yankee skulls" and rebel women wore brooches made out of the bones of soldiers scavenged from battlefields.
One of the most startling mentions was about a widow who was too sick to move from her bed and whose house happened to be in the middle of the battlefield at Manassas. Her foot was shot off during the fighting and she died the next day.
There is also a scene where Edmons/Thompson undergoes a physical examination to become a spy. She worried about her sex being uncovered, but the focus of the exam was on her head. Phrenology was supposed to reveal one's character:
She silently prayed that her head did not betray her sex; phrenological studies on women often concluded that their organs of "adhesiveness," cautiousness, and procreation were so prominent as to elongate, and even deform, the middle of the back of the head. The doctor poked and prodded with his caliper and scratched notes on a pad. Emma felt stifled inside her frock coat, drops of sweat sliding down between her breasts. He determined, finally, that Frank Thompson indeed had the head of a man, with "largely developed" organs of secretiveness and combativeness. Emma acted as though she'd expected to hear as much, and took the oat of allegiance.
Famous figures of the time make their way into the story and add to its richness: Nathaniel Hawthorne is mentioned as are Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, and Mary Chestnut. Thomas Carlyle plays a role, as does Napoleon III. Then there's Pinkerton and his crew, including at least one female detective. As always, Mary Todd Lincoln is mocked for her plainness and northern General McClellan is portrayed as a do-nothing general. However, on the southern side of the fence, instead of General Lee stealing the show Stonewall Jackson gets much more ink in this book.
This is a thick book, 544 pages, and at times it felt like it. It seems that the repetitive structure of going back and forth between four stories and the lack of a sharper unifying drive within the narrative made it was slow going here & there. However, the book was never a slog to get through, it simply isn't a swift historical narrative so don't expect a read like, say, The Devil in the White City.
One historical inaccuracy jumped out at me from the second page of the preface where Abbott sets the scene of troops pouring into each capital in the spring of 1861. She mentions that "taps" is played at night. That gave me pause because having read The Killer Angels earlier this summer where the bugle calls of General Butterfield are discussed and which led me to read a bit more about Butterfield, it is well documented that Taps wasn't written until July 1862. Some may excuse this as a minor inaccuracy, but it did cause me to be on guard as a reader.
For example, Abbott makes a point of stating that she didn't make up any dialog, but she did, it seems, imagine scenes that, while adding some spice (such as Belle waiting for General Butler with her hands on her hips and impatiently tapping her foot) or giving closure to a section (like Rose "spreading" her daughter across her lap to tell her a story and making sure the good guys win) also caused me to stop and wonder if these things really happened. Leaving the flow of a narrative to check footnotes for documentation is not something a storyteller wants the reader to do on a regular basis.
The above are minor complaints compared to the overall enjoyment of reading about these courageous women who risked their lives to fight for what they believed in. This is an engaging and important book, one that shows women's active participation in the waging of warfare long before they had the right to vote.
(review copy, read for TLC Book Tours)