Vermont Women and the Civil War

A presentation by Howard Coffin at the Morrill Homestead, 214 Justin Morrill Memorial Highway in Strafford, Vermont, 05072. Made possible by Friends of the Morrill Homestead, in partnership with the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation.

Sunday, July 14, 4 pm

“Vermont women enlisted for the duration.”

Vermont’s remarkable Civil War battlefield record is well documented, but little is known of how Vermont women sustained the home front. With nearly 35,000 of the state’s able-bodied men at war, the monumental tasks of keeping more than 30,000 farms in operation became very much a female enterprise. And women took the place of men in factories and worked after hours making items needed by the soldiers.

A Vermont woman, Clarina Irene Howard Nichols, edited anti-slavery newspapers, and others spoke against slavery.

Also, Vermont women served as nurses in the state’s military hospitals and in the war zone, and taught newly-freed slaves in the South. And at least one Vermont woman appears to have secretly enlisted and fought in a Vermont regiment.

This story is told in their words, from letters and diaries that describe life during the Civil War in the Green Mountain State. A seventh-generation Vermonter, Howard Coffin is the author of four books on the Civil War.

A seventh-generation Vermonter, Howard Coffin is the author of four books on the Civil War.