'War within a War': Women's Participation in the Revolt of the North Carolina Piedmont, 1863-1865

The participation of women in North Carolina's inner civil war has received only scattered attention, despite the facts that women altered the balance of power between Confederate and Unionist men and that their behavior sharply contradicted traditional notions about the "natural" timidity and deference of their sex. Indeed, in their struggle to protect the traditional order of their communities, many North Carolina women displayed a striking level of untraditional disorderliness, showing a marked preference for joining the struggle that divided community and state, rather than simply becoming its victims. And the intensity of the confrontation left men little choice but to welcome aggressive behavior from female kinfolk and friends. This was particularly true of disloyal men, who clearly depended upon the willingness of women to act in a manner commonly thought unrefined, even "degraded," for their sex. [Author]