Women camp followers of the American Revolution

Women Camp Followers of the American Revolution

Women have played a crucial role in history and in its most important developments along time. The status of women in America however has been one of the most controversial issues in building the American democracy. This is largely due to the fact that women, in the 18th and 19th century did not have the same rights as men and were therefore forced to be inferior to the man in front of the law. The struggle for equal rights and the abolition of discriminatory practices is an important segment of the American history, and one of its episodes unfolded during the American Revolution and the Civil War, as women, despite the common expectations, played an essential role in supporting the war efforts and the military. In their struggle to make a difference and to contribute to the changes taking place in the society, they had to face different sorts of obstacles, from gender inequality to social disregard and color discrimination. In the end however, history acknowledged their part in the overall development of the events making up the crucial moment of the American Revolution and the Civil War. Women were in this sense part of the Camp Followers.

The present paper presents the role of the Camp Followers and in particular that of women as part of this generic term during the American Revolution as well as the Civil War. The two historical events were not treated separately in terms of the definition and description of camp followers largely because the role played by these groups was similar in nature and technique. Therefore, the paper focuses on the general idea of the camp followers during the troubled times of the American past, the American Revolution and the Civil War.

A proper definition of the term "camp followers" provided by Holly A. Mayer points out that "soldiers alone do not make an army. They are the most fundamental part of that military force, but as hard as they work, and as much as they do, an army seldom marches out on their efforts alone. A great number of other people join the soldiers and their officers to build and maintain these martial organizations. (…) Such women, wagoners, and others are camp followers: those people who live and work with the military and accept, willingly or not, its governance of their affairs"

. Therefore, it can be pointed out that camp followers included women and children, who, at one point or another would become useful for the war effort.

Another definition of camp followers also includes the preconceptions related to camp followers. More precisely, "While the word "camp follower" has come to be synonymous with whore, the camp followers of the American Revolution were generally married women (with their children), who followed their husbands. They were recognized as part of the military, receiving rations - half rations for wives and quarter rations for children - and were subject to military discipline. (One woman, for instance, was jailed for using abusive language to an officer.) Camp followers earned pay as cooks, nurses and laundresses"

. Therefore, women as camp followers eventually bared the same responsibilities in the camp as at home, but under much harsher circumstances.

The role of the children as camp followers was important and the army most often relied on their presence to ensure completeness of several chores around the camp. More precisely, "The children in the army had to work too. They were expected to be as busy as the adults. They hauled water and gathered firewood. Boys served as runners carrying messages from one person to another. Some boys became military musicians who played the fifes and drums. Girls helped their mothers with cooking, cleaning, and mending and washing the clothes. The children had time to work because there was no school in the army"

The most important role in the camp followers was however played by the women that accompanied the army because of their multiple tasks they performed for the housekeeping as well as wound relief. The choice of becoming camp followers was most of the times self imposed; more precisely, women tended to follow their husbands because their existence without their husbands would have been much more difficult in terms of financial and security aspects. Furthermore, the society at that time was relatively reluctant to accept untraditional families without the head of a household.

In order to fully see the relevance of the role women played in this period of the American history, it is important to take into account several additional aspects that make up the general conditions under which women took action. This may, after all, also represent a proof of the contribution women had to the shaping of the political, economic and social life, an achievement that had been denied to women in particular.

Therefore, it is essential to have a brief presentation of the general background of the era, followed by a particular emphasis on the condition of women during this time. The civil war represented an occasion for women to address their double discriminatory situation; in this case, a black woman for instance was rejected by her fellow white women for the color of her skin, and, at the same time, by her fellow black men for being a woman. Therefore, it is important to consider the challenges facing women in that time, with a particular emphasis on the actions and reactions to their defying attitudes. Most importantly however for the argumentation of the actual role of women in the Civil War would be the precise and concrete presentation of deeds and activities in which women, black and white, were engaged in throughout the war.

The historical background of the time was determined especially by the political, economic, and social situation of the North in relation to the South. The political aspect differed greatly. While the North was seen as liberal and the proponent of a confederate system of rule, the South was determined to keep and promote a unionist solution. From this perspective, the war broke out between two different views on the possible successful political system.

From an economic point-of-view, the differences were as well noticeable. The South was a region that had flourished due to the cotton and tobacco plantations that occupied most of its territory. However, this could not have been achieved without the systematic use of slave labor. Georgia was considered to be one of the most representative states in terms of the use of black force labor. The North by contrast, was a region focused more on the industrial side of the economic development, as they relied more on the evolution of technology rather than the use of human labor force. This differentiation in economic practices led in the end to the creation of two distinct economic blueprints that eventually confronted.

Socially speaking, the overall image was also split. While the society in the South was dominated by property owners and local slave-owners due to the economic specificities of the area, the North, as a consequence of the development of more liberal crafts and production activities, enjoyed a modern and more opened social environment, based on liberal ideas such as free trade and competition. This distinction too attracted a major differentiation between the two sides that resulted in the end in open clashes

In this wider context, women were reserved a special place. On the one hand, "the customary images of women as primarily wives and mothers not only persisted, but were enhanced by a highly developed doctrine of women's sphere"

. They were sincerely convinced that their most important and first duty was childcare and they engaged in creating a moral and elevated climate for them. Thus, the myth of the woman as being responsible for everyday chores and the education of children remained the axis of every pertinent judgment on the place of women in the society. Even more, "professional and entrepreneurial men preferred to have their wives and daughters remain at home as symbols of their own ability to support their family."

The promotion of this exclusivist image, sometimes in relation to other types of female images such as the innocent interiorized maiden defined by the Cult of White Womanhood or the puritan type added to the limitation of perspectives over the role women could actually play in the development of the society.

On the other hand, however, the evolution of the economic conditions, together with the increasing need for additional income determined women to expand their range of activities. Thus, "the actual activities and the employment of women were challenging the traditional concept of separate spheres (…") Among other things, industrialization transformed household production, created social classes of women, and drew huge number of women from their homes into paid employment.

Accordingly, women were present in factories for carding and spinning yarn, shoe factories, the needle trades or in new emerging mill towns. Even so, the discriminatory behavior son surfaced, as women were obviously paid less than men, despite performing at a similar level.

The role of women in the camp followers group was therefore crucial for the armies, regardless of their affiliation. At the same time though, there were a lot of criticism brought to the group of "camp followers." One example in this sense was the reluctance to the idea of women in the camp followers group. More precisely, "many equated 'camp follower' with 'whore' or even if they were not quite so derogatory, they saw such a being as part of the lower orders that did not quite seem representative of or equal to the ideal of American citizen"

. Therefore, the distinction between women and the rest of the society was seen even at that level, despite the constant aid provided by women as members of the "camp followers" group.

This perspective offers the general framework for the evolution of women's status in terms of the challenges they faced and the obstacles they were forced to surpass. Generally speaking, women had to endure the negative treatment of men based on the historical consideration of the fragility of the sex. This is the argument often invoked when justifying the limits imposed to women who were prevented from engaging in male dominated activities such as those undergone in mines or hard labor. Even so, this attitude continuously reached new heights and the denial of the possibility to take part in the social and political life was soon to be justified through the use of this argument, especially taking into account the fact that women, as a result of such a mentality, were limited to the activities surrounding the household. This in turn negatively affected the opportunities for any eventual improvement of skills, which in the end resulted in the inability of most women to tackle politics or other socially related activities.

Indeed the time of the revolution and the war was strongly influenced by discriminatory attitudes. This is why there were different attempts to reduce the gap between people. Still, the discrimination towards women was relatively distinct. As poof of this fact was the Congress's decision to adopt a series of legislative initiatives that still failed to resolve the issue in its entirety; relevant to the point is "when Congress passed the 14th amendment in 1866, its provision extended political privileges to white and black men but not to women."

There is another aspect of that marked the situation of women, an element that made the participation of women to the relief activities even more important for the overall evolution of the female condition in the society. Despite the fact that neither Northern nor Southern women were privileged to have an easier time it was the black women that were faced with an extra pressure, given the circumstances of their social existence. Throughout time, black women had to face a double injustice, being discriminated for being a woman in her black community, and for being black in the company of their white female groups

The distinction between white and colored women manifested even during the war years, but, unlike the previous decades when white women benefited from the support of their husbands, they had to cooperate in helping their soldiers. Thus, the distinction between the white and black women was rapidly surpassed and, out of necessity, many white females came to appreciate and honor the qualities of their fellow black women

Despite its large number of casualties, the Revolution and the Civil war were important opportunities for women to affirm their abilities and their importance in the society. The conflict came as a relative unprepared event and therefore the victims and the duration of the war made it essential for additional care, but, at the same time, for a reorientation of the balance of activities conducted by women in the society.

Firstly, it must be pointed out the fact that, no matter the soldiers they supported, women had the intrinsic respect for the value of human life and therefore decided to intervene not so much in support of one of the armies, but rather orient their actions towards helping the needs and those affected by the war L.P. Brockett, Mary C. Vaughan, and Zeigler, in the introductory analysis to "McCurdy Woman's Work in the Civil War: A Record of Heroism, Patriotism and Patience," presented the same idea. They referred to the women present in the book as having "inevitably lost the benefits of privacy, by the largeness and length of their public services, and their names and history are to a certain extent the property of the country."

Therefore, there is a general opinion that indeed, women managed to play an essential role in the evolution of the war, through different means and making use of the resources at their disposal.

The actions women took can be seen from a multitude of perspectives. For instance, L.P. Brockett considered their initiatives as an expression of patriotism, while others saw them as both a duty towards the society and one to the entire community. Taking these aspects into consideration, women followed different courses of action.

From the onset of the war, women were engaged in different types of organizations and committees that enabled them to support the war efforts of their husbands. In this respect, they continued certain activities that had been already underway from the start of the century as the symbol of women's emancipation. Thus, giving the fact that "from the 1790s on both black and white women had been organizing voluntary associations, at first religious and charitable, but some with more overtly political intent by the antebellum period"

, the organizational experience was already developed and rather efficient, an element that contributes to the success of their war initiatives.

Such initiatives materialized in the form of war committees such as The New York Central Association of Relief or Weldon Pennsylvania. The latter, for instance, registered an important contribution, as "these women's groups sent tremendous quantities of supplies to the front. Organized in 1862, the, society contributed $17, 000 in goods in one year," aside from the quantity of clothes, shoes, and additional material necessary to those on the front.

This practical approach to the activities women took during the war was the embodiment of a general trend, which responded to the basic needs of any country in confronted with civil war. As the conflict raised momentum, both Northern and Southern women "began to congregate in homes, hotels, and churches to preserve fruits (…) and organize charity fairs and other fund raising events to collect money with which to buy supplies."

This was an additional example of their involvement in raising financial resources for supporting the soldiers.

Every armed conflict is faced, eventually, with a crisis at the level of victim care. In some cases even, the situation can surpass the expectations and the gravity of the result in terms of casualties. This was the case with the Civil War, whose evolution, plagued by the controversy of questionable decisions from the commanding generals, was prolonged outside the time limits first taken into consideration. This is why there was an increasing for medical support and assistance. Thus, "from the very beginning of the civil war, women were drawn into the war effort by requests for huge amounts of foodstuffs, bandages, and other sanitary."