Stepdaughters of History ─ Southern Women and the American Civil War

A brisk survey of competing and challenging roles for African American and white women during the Civil War and the struggle to capture this legacy within the current academic and historical climate. From women disguising themselves as soldiers, to women safeguarding the plantation for men in the Confederate ranks, to women fleeing those very same plantations, this book offers key insights into these women and their heroic struggles, and how the academy is weighing their contributions.

Catherine Clinton is Gilbert Denman Endowed Chair of American History at the University of Texas at San Antonio and International Research Professor at Queen’s University Belfast. She is the author of over a dozen books, including The Plantation Mistress: Woman’s World in the Old South; The Other Civil War: American Women in the Nineteenth Century; Tara Revisited: Women, War, and the Plantation Legend; Fanny Kemble’s Civil Wars; Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom; and Mrs. Lincoln: A Life. She currently serves as president of the Southern Historical Association.