Imagine Yourself Experiencing This

For me, the most interesting aspect of the civil war (and any other war, for that matter) are the people behind the battles, and the people behind the soldiers.

Even during the times when feminism had not yet awoken, war always forced women and society out of the traditional roles or enlarged the traditional role way beyond what they usually were.

The story of Fanny Lawrence Ricketts is a perfect example of a that.

In January 1856 Fanny Lawernce married a distant cousin of her’s who was at the time a captain in the First Artillery, U.S. Army.
After the wedding Fanny accompanied her husband to his new post on the Rio Grande, were she immediately endeared herself on the troupes with constant acts of kindness.

During the First Battle of Bull run James Ricketts was shot 4 times and captured by the confederates. He was immediately promoted to Brigadier general for his bravery.
When her husbands unit returned without him, she set out through Unioun lines to the site of battle to find her husband.

Of course the pass she had obtained was useless to her when she reach the confederate post, but this didn’t stop Fanny. She remembered her husbands friendship with J.E.B Stuart before the war, and with his help obtained a pass into the battle field.

After 4 days of searching Fanny found herself in a makeshift hospital where her husband lay and from there accompanied him into Richmond and captivity.
Once again - she was able to obtain privileges because she made friends with the prison guards and was able to visit her love almost everyday.

Civil war women brings the following excerpt from her diary:

July 26:
No words can describe the horrors around me. Two men dead and covered with blood were carried down the stairs as I waited to let them pass. On a table in the open hall, a man was undergoing amputation of the leg. At the foot of the stairs two bloody legs lay, and through it all I went to my husband. Outside the next door was a severed arm, and my clothes brushed by blood, cloths, splint, etc. I found my dear husband lying on a hospital stretcher, still covered with blood! Downstairs, there are some forty men in the various stages of death or possible recovery. Blood runs on the floors, the smell is dreadful but no language can describe it.

July 27:
Dear James passed a restless night, his knee is much inflamed. Oh God, grant my darling husband be spared his leg. I was awake all night, the groans of the dying sounding in my ears. As I look from the window I see a severed leg under a tree. It has been there all day, and I intend asking to have it removed.

While caring for her husband, she also cared for those union soldier that didn’t have their wives by their side, and after a long 4 months with her husbands life hanging on a mere thread, he recovered and was exchanged in December 1861.

James went back into battle in the second battle of bull run, and the Battle of Antietam where he had two horses killed under him and was badly injured when the second one fell on him.

Once again he recovered with the help of his wife’s tender care. In the Battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg he escaped injury but that didn’t keep Fanny from ministering care to the other wounded men.

James participated in a good few more battles and was thought to have been mortally injured ant the Battle of Cedar Creek where he was wounded by a Minie Ball though his chest - for another four months Fanny cared for him tenderly till he recovered.

There can be no doubt as to Fannys contribution to the war effort, even though she held no weapon. She was so to speak the woman behind the man, and without her, James could very well have died of his initial injury.