Author Nancy Hendricks will present "Women Civil War Soldiers" at the Garland County Historical Society's next meeting at noon Tuesday at the Garland County Library.
Visitors are welcome to attend the meeting, which is free and open to the public.
Hendricks will spotlight women who served undetected on the front lines during the Civil War. Most current scholars place the number of women soldiers on both sides during the Civil War at between 400 and 1,000, the society said in a news release.
"American women have fought for their country since before the nation was born. They served for many of the same reasons men did, but did not receive the same recognition. During the Civil War, if discovered, a woman could be imprisoned or committed to an insane asylum. Still, many went," Hendricks said in the release.
Hendricks' book, "Senator Hattie Caraway: An Arkansas Legacy" was named by Cosmopolitan magazine as one of the "Twenty Political Books All Women Should Read." She is a founding member of the proposed National Women's History Museum in Washington, D.C., and is the recipient of a Pryor Award for Arkansas Women's History, Arkansas Governor's Arts Award, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution "Women in History Award," and the White House Millennium Award.
Continuing the Civil War theme of the meeting, GCHS Executive Director Liz Robbins will present glimpses of women's experiences on the "home front" in this area during the war years.
Society on 05/19/2019