From Books to Battlefields: Women Soldiers as Students and Teachers

And just like that, my summer is over, and it's time to go back to school.   While I love my job as a college instructor and have been blessed to have taught with some of the most amazing people throughout my career at all levels, I defy you to find a teacher who rues the end of summer vacation.


Naturally, I am drawn to stories of teachers-turned-soldiers during the Civil War.  There were units dubbed "teachers regiments" because of the number of soldiers who were a part of the profession.  There was the 151st Pennsylvania Infantry for instance.  The 20th Massachusetts Infantry was known as the "Harvard Regiment."  And then there was the 33rd Illinois Infantry whose officers refused to obey orders that contained spelling or grammatical errors.  I can absolutely see that happening!  Woman soldier Elizabeth Quinn (Frances Hook) supposedly served in this regiment, albeit briefly.  However, there is some question regarding this part of her account.

D.H. Hill

As for individuals, perhaps the most recognizable professor on the Union side was Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain who taught rhetoric at Bowdoin College before leading the 20th Maine to fame at Gettysburg.   After the war, he returned to the classroom to teach every subject except science and mathematics.  But being a mathematics instructor myself (though with a B.A. in history in addition to an M.Ed. with graduate work in math and history), I am partial to math teachers.  My favorite is General D.H. Hill who taught mathematics at Washington College (now Washington and Lee), Davidson College, and, after the war, what would become North Carolina State University.   In 1857, he wrote an Algebra textbook entitled Elements of Algebra.  Having taught a variety of levels of Algebra courses my entire career, I had a complete geek-out moment when I discovered it.  You can find it online or actually buy a copy of it today.  Mark surprised me with one as a gift, which I was thrilled with!  As I perused the examples, I found it interesting to compare teaching strategies back then to today.  And what can I say about the word problems?  They undeniably reflect Hill's personality.  General Lee didn't like it.....Hill's personality that is.   Daniel Harvey was rather blunt and sarcastic, a trait that the stoic, aristocratic Lee didn't get.  I totally do.

As for Hill's textbook, he received a glowing review proclaiming it, "superior to any other work with which I am acquainted on the same branch of science."  That was from Stonewall Jackson, Hill's brother-in-law.  Though it may seem that nepotism may have played a role in the review, Stonewall himself knew something about mathematics.  He taught the subject at the Virginia Military Institute.

Another mathematics professor included Lieutenant General A.P. Stewart who taught at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee and later on at the University of Nashville.  In 1874, he moved here to Mississippi and became chancellor at the University of Mississippi, known as Ole Miss, in Oxford.

Speaking of Ole Miss, Massachusetts native and Confederate Brigadier General Claudius Sears taught mathematics there after the institution reopened in 1865.  The university had closed its doors upon the outbreak of hostilities because nearly the entire student body enlisted in the Confederate army, many of whom would never return to class.  Specifically, Company A of the 11th Mississippi Infantry, known as the "University Greys" because it was comprised solely of students and professors of the institution, suffered a 100% casualty rate at Gettysburg.  Every.....single.....man from that company who was present for duty during the battle was either killed, wounded, captured, or missing.

University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) in 1861
How many of those individuals would die on a Civil War battlefield?
https://www.olemiss.edu/depts/general_library/archives/exhibits/1861/

And yes, there were women soldiers who were students and teachers.

A large number of women soldiers - if not most of them - came from poor or working class backgrounds where there were little to no educational opportunities for them.  Yet, there were exceptions.  Newspapers reported that Ella Reno received a superior education in a Wheeling convent.  An eighteen-year-old woman who enlisted as "Frank Deming" claimed her pre-war occupation was "student."

Coming from an impoverished family resulting from her father's abandonment, Revolutionary War heroine Deborah Samson (Sampson) became an indentured servant at age ten.  She was released from her servitude at age eighteen, after which time the self-educated woman became a part-time teacher and weaver.  However, she soon abandoned those professions in order to seek adventure as "Robert Shurtliff" in the 4th Massachusetts Regiment.  I can tell you that if she didn't think teaching was adventurous enough, she was doing it wrong!  And she probably wished she had stayed in the classroom when she removed a musket ball from her thigh herself.  She remained undetected though until she later fell ill and was discovered by a surgeon.  Military officials issued her an honorable discharge, and the female fighter returned to Massachusetts where she married and had children.  Upon the support of Paul Revere, the government issued Samson a pension which her husband continued to receive after her death as a soldier's spouse

Deborah Sam(p)son

College-educated Mary Ann Clark left behind two children, an abusive husband, and a teaching career to serve as an orderly (or servant) in the 2nd Kentucky Cavalry as "Henry Clark."  After being discovered, she then drifted into the ranks of an infantry unit as "Richard Anderson."  Sources claim the regiment was either the 11th or 5th Tennessee Infantry.  She was captured and exchanged as a prisoner of war in December 1862.  Before the war, Clark was educated at Mt. Alba College, which was a female Baptist college in Hardinsburg where her father, W.P. Clark, served as a superintendent.  Described as "well informed in politics and literature," Clark taught school in Hardin and Breckinridge Counties in Kentucky before her troubled life pushed her into the ranks as a means of escape.  The military provided her a stable environment she woefully lacked at home.  After the war, she returned home and married another teacher.

And then there was Jane Perkins.  Historians claim she was an Irish immigrant who originally settled in Massachusetts prior to moving to Pittsylvania County, Virginia before the war where she was a teacher.  She joined the ranks of a Confederate artillery unit and was captured during the North Anna Campaign.  Perkins ended up spending ten months in various prisons, including Point Lookout.  She was quite fiery and her hot mouth got her in trouble with guards on more than one occasion.

However, my new research suggests that she was not a teacher because historians confused her with another Jane Perkins living in Pittsylvania County in 1860.  According to newspaper articles and military documents, the soldier woman Perkins was named Jane A. Perkins.  Meanwhile, the teacher Perkins was named Jane E. Perkins.  She can be found in other census reports, including the 1860 census in Massachusetts.  What probably happened was that Jane - also called Jennie - went to Virginia for a teaching job and then returned home when things started to spiral out of control. 

All of these men and women - students and teachers - undoubtedly found a different type of classroom on murderous battlefields where they learned first-hand about the horrors of war.  And while it is relatively easy to forget instruction we have received without usage and practice, these were lessons that remained with these soldiers for the rest of their lives.....however long or short that may have been.

Until next formation....rest.