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King's Battery |
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Formed as Missouri state guard 1861 |
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Women of the 1860s |
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What role should women play in the war? Most people believed that women should sew, cook, nurse and otherwise care for the exclusively male soldiers. Yet some women found ways to do more. On more than one account young women would take up arms to defend their homes and family. One such woman was Jane Bowman whose father was keeper of a railroad bridge. When troops came to burn the bridge the troops that guarded it had taken flight, Jane ran from the house and called upon them to come back and hold the bridge. Seeing that they were unwilling to Jane herself picked up a discarded pistol and began to fight herself. This is one of many accounts of such heroism by women in the civil war. |