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3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
Four ladies of the Civil War show their cunning nature and intelligence by spying and deceiving those against their cause. This book focuses on four ladies:
- Belle Boyd, a 17-year old charmer who shoots a Union soldier in her home then becomes a spy for the Confederate army. She gets her information by using her charm.
- Elizabeth Van Lew living in Richmond, Virginia, leading a spy ring. She had ciphers and codes for sending all of her messages, under the noses of prominent Confederates.
- Emma Edmonds, a Canadian, enlisting as "Frank Thompson" as a Union private, fighting, nursing, and spying for her cause.
- Rose Greenhow, using her daughter little Rose to provide important information to the Confederates.
Watch author Karen Abbott describe the four ladies in her book:
These women were incredibly brave and it's quite amazing that many years before women were even allowed to vote, these women were controlling so much information and changing the efforts of the war. I think it's natural to pull for some of these women more than others. Personally, I enjoyed Emma's story the best, and not only because she was Canadian but because she did so many things that one would never think at that time a woman could do! She was a soldier, she fought in the war, she nursed others back to health, she spied, she posed as a man who posed as a women, and she posed as a black man to gain information for her side.
I found that I had troubles keeping track of the four women in this book because of the way it was written. Abbott switched between the stories of the women multiple times within a chapter and I feel like it would have been easier and smoother had each chapter been dedicated to a single woman.
I also found that there were some pacing issues with this book. It was like a roller coaster ride where some parts were very interesting and others did nothing to move the story along.
- Belle Boyd, a 17-year old charmer who shoots a Union soldier in her home then becomes a spy for the Confederate army. She gets her information by using her charm.
- Elizabeth Van Lew living in Richmond, Virginia, leading a spy ring. She had ciphers and codes for sending all of her messages, under the noses of prominent Confederates.
- Emma Edmonds, a Canadian, enlisting as "Frank Thompson" as a Union private, fighting, nursing, and spying for her cause.
- Rose Greenhow, using her daughter little Rose to provide important information to the Confederates.
Watch author Karen Abbott describe the four ladies in her book:
These women were incredibly brave and it's quite amazing that many years before women were even allowed to vote, these women were controlling so much information and changing the efforts of the war. I think it's natural to pull for some of these women more than others. Personally, I enjoyed Emma's story the best, and not only because she was Canadian but because she did so many things that one would never think at that time a woman could do! She was a soldier, she fought in the war, she nursed others back to health, she spied, she posed as a man who posed as a women, and she posed as a black man to gain information for her side.
I found that I had troubles keeping track of the four women in this book because of the way it was written. Abbott switched between the stories of the women multiple times within a chapter and I feel like it would have been easier and smoother had each chapter been dedicated to a single woman.
I also found that there were some pacing issues with this book. It was like a roller coaster ride where some parts were very interesting and others did nothing to move the story along.
adventurous
emotional
informative
inspiring
tense
fast-paced
This book is a great read. I had no idea of these women’s stories and the roles they played in the civil war. Highly recommended.
Very interesting biography of 4 women who worked undercover as spies, smugglers and soldiers during the civil war.
I read this book because I had a complex related to the importance of women spies during the civil war. This book luckily proved the 4 women highlighted played vital roles to both sides. Great historical review of the war from a unique perspective.
In this historical account, Karen Abbot tells the little known stories of four female spies during the Civil War. Belle Boyd and Rose O'Neale Greenhow who shared intelligence with the Confederacy, Emma Edmonds, who disguised herself as a Union soldier and Elizabeth Van Lew, who sheltered Union soldiers in her Southern home as well as sharing intelligence with the Union.
While I think this book is well researched and very interesting, I felt it was a little hard to follow at times. Abbott would often switch from one of the women to another in the same chapter without much transition. It feel like it would have been better if she had devoted chapters to a single woman. I also would have liked more background on the Civil War events as I often felt confused as to what was going on in the war as a whole and I do not have much prior knowledge. A Civil War buff who knows all the details might feel differently. However, despite these things, I am really glad that I read it as I never knew that there were so many women so involved in the Civil War. It was very interesting to hear their stories and they deserve to be told. I found the story of Emma Edmonds most interesting. She went to such great lengths to disguise her identity. Overall, this was a very interesting book.
ND Women Connect Book Club April 2015
While I think this book is well researched and very interesting, I felt it was a little hard to follow at times. Abbott would often switch from one of the women to another in the same chapter without much transition. It feel like it would have been better if she had devoted chapters to a single woman. I also would have liked more background on the Civil War events as I often felt confused as to what was going on in the war as a whole and I do not have much prior knowledge. A Civil War buff who knows all the details might feel differently. However, despite these things, I am really glad that I read it as I never knew that there were so many women so involved in the Civil War. It was very interesting to hear their stories and they deserve to be told. I found the story of Emma Edmonds most interesting. She went to such great lengths to disguise her identity. Overall, this was a very interesting book.
ND Women Connect Book Club April 2015
I found this pretty slow and pretty repetitive. I love a nonfiction that covers a clear set of characters (in this case four women) but they were all so relatively similar in their stories that it got boring. All 4 were white, which I didn’t appreciate for a history text of the Civil War, and 3 of them came from wealthy backgrounds. It mostly felt like I was reading the same thing over and over, plus I was so completely uninvested in and repulsed by the 2 women representing the Confederacy
The book started with promise of being a great book to read; but fizzled into a history report.
Four stories of bold women that you weren't taught about in American history.
Incredibly hard to follow from chapter to chapter and even sometimes paragraph to paragraph which woman was being spoken about/which side she was on. The writing and information is solid, but the editor should have formatted in a way for more clarity. Still recommended, though.