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Thursday, March 21, 2013
Women Fighters, the Marines, and Writing with Sarah Cass
These days women in combat is a hot topic. Will a woman meet
the grueling standards required? Is the Marine Corps decision to let them fight
wrong? Can a woman truly fight in battle as well as a man?
While I was researching the roles of women nurses during the
US Civil War for An Uncivil War the
Marine Corps decision was all over the news. It was serendipity to have that
playing in the background as my nurse research led to the discovery that in our
own civil war over 150 years ago women were fighting on those bloody fields,
most of them disguised as men.
It’s a dirty little secret that never showed up in my
history books during school.
If it had I might have paid more attention.
After all, for most of us the role of women in that war was
reserved to pining at home for their husbands and sons. Visions of that certain
iconic movie and the hospital scene of men laid out for acres in the dirt.
Their roles keeping home and hearth and struggling to maintain land and keep
their home free of invading desperate soldiers.
Yet now you can find reports scattered, most
infamous—although some prove more known—of women’s bodies discovered dead, or
wounded soldiers sent home because their femininity was discovered.
Strong, fierce, and proud women fighting alongside men that
often didn’t even know who they were fighting next to.
In the past I’ve always avoided the period of the civil war.
I always focused on the time after, on the frontier and the ‘wild’ west, the
Indian wars that raged on for years. The
closest I came to the civil war is the psychological effects it had on my
characters if they’d been involved.
Most of the avoidance came from my utter dislike of social
studies and US history in school. I
liked to learn about people and fashion and customs. Wars and battles and dates
never got me interested (much to my father’s disappointment, I might add).
All it would have taken was “Women fought in secret” to get
my attention.
And it has.
Already I’m plotting another story. In what little spare time
I have I’m researching these women soldiers, and planning what direction to
take my story.
For once in my life I’m fascinated about the war for so much
more than the ghosts it left behind.
***
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Very Cool, I look forward to learning more of these female warriors:O)
ReplyDeleteI just saw a PBS special on Louisa May Alcott who was a nurse in Washington DC during the Civil War. When she left to do that her father said he was sending his only son to war. I had no idea she was a woman whose personal story would fit right in with our book. She fought hard to earn a living for the family since her father was no good at it. She ran almost everyday to keep fit. Most of her writings were lost and some still are because she wrote pulp fiction in addition to the titles we associate with her. She is not at all the woman I thought she was.
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