Female Home Guard Units

With so many men marching off to war, women found themselves in charge of their homes and hearths.  Among the unconventional roles they assumed in the absence of their male loved ones included managing farms and hunting for food.   In addition to these undertakings which provided for their families, they also formed home guard units in order to protect them.  I mentioned a couple of these in my book, Behind the Rifle.  One unit existed in Chickasaw County, Mississippi:

Raftsmans Journal, April 10, 1861

Chickasaw County
Wikipedia

 Another was based in Choctaw County, Mississippi.  One newspaper writer noted that these women were "Almost a Boone with his rifle," referring to famed frontiersman Daniel Boone and comparing the women's prowess with their weapon to his skill. 

Choctaw County
Wikipedia

 

 While there isn't much known about these units, research reveals that they drilled like men.  But instead of using rifles, they bore brooms and sticks when they drilled, as evidenced in the photo below of the White Mountain Rangers from New Hampshire:

Library of Congress

 

I included this photo in my book.  And at the time of publication, the Library of Congress attributed it to Alexander Gardner based on initials appearing on the back.  Since then, the photographer was changed to Nathan W. Pease due to other images surfacing with his identification on the photos.

Regardless of photographer, the image gives a good snapshot of what these rare female home guard units looked like with their drill "weapons" and feminine dress.

Another of these units - and perhaps the most recognizable - the Nancy Harts wore "ruffled skirts and flowered or feathered hats."  This group of nearly forty women was formed in LaGrange, Georgia in 1861 by Nancy Hill Morgan and Mary Alford Heard and drilled using Hardee's manual of tactics.

 

Nancy Hill Morgan
Troup County Archives

 

They were named after Nancy Hart, who outwitted and killed a group of Tories at her cabin in northeast Georgia during the American Revolution.  But unlike their namesake, the Nancies of the Civil War did not shed blood.  Though they did see much of it in their role as nurses.  During their four-year patrol, the only military action they saw was when they marched out to defend their town from Union forces under Major General James H. Wilson who led a raid in west Georgia in mid-April 1865.  However, the action resulted in the women peacefully surrendering LaGrange.  

Digital Library of Georgia

 

And up until recently, it appears that none of the other female home guard units actually engaged in combat either.  

But recently, I saw a post on the North Mississippi Civil War Facebook page in which the administrator posted the following account:

 

"...We came to a gay Reb - in brand new uniform who had been wounded - Our surgeons took charge of her for it proved to be a member of the Female Oxford Guards, a company of uniformed, armed, and mounted young women of Oxford Miss. that had come out to defend the town. Nevertheless we went on into Oxford with little opposition.”

Please keep in mind that when the soldier used the term, "gay," he didn't mean it in the same context as we think of today, i.e. homosexual.  The word had a different connotation back then.  It typically meant "carefree."  Or it could also refer to women who were prostitutes or loose, which is likely the case in this scenario.  It was not uncommon for men during the Civil War to denounce women caught in uniform as such simply for overstepping the bounds of social propriety.  It didn't mean that the accusation was true.

Oxford, Mississippi in Lafayette County
Wikipedia

 

The quote cited above is from an Indiana soldier and points out interesting details that she was wearing a new uniform and that she was a member of a mounted female home guard unit, the Female Oxford Guards.  The fact that she was wounded implies that she saw combat with her unit in defense of her town.  Thus far, this is the only  all-female unit I know of to have actually seen military action during the Civil War.

Thanks to the admin of the North Mississippi Civil War Facebook page for sharing the quote and for Pat for sharing a copy of the actual document.

Until next formation.....rest.