A review by miocenemama
Women of the Blue and Gray: True Civil War Stories of Mothers, Medics, Soldiers, and Spies by Marianne Monson

5.0

What I really liked about this book is that it tried to acknowledge the suffering and the contributions of women on both sides without ever justifying the beliefs of the Confederacy. In fact, in the author's final notes, she explained that she had no intention of justifying the reasons for secession but that at some point we had to acknowledge that we have more in common as human beings than as differences, something that would be well to remember in this time of such divisiveness. She also made a point of including the experiences not only of African Americans but also of Native Americans. She shared things about the effect of the Civil War on Natives some of which I was not aware of. Even the injustices against Natives that I knew about were given a new context in light of the Civil War. The book is well researched with extensive footnotes but is still superbly readable