Louisa May Alcott was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania on November 29, 1832. She and her three sisters, Anna, Elizabeth and May were educated by their father, philosopher/ teacher, Bronson Alcott and raised on the practical Christianity of their mother, Abigail May.

One of the most famous of Confederate spies, Belle Boyd served the Confederate forces in the Shenandoah Valley. Born in Martinsburg-now part of West Virginia Her education was in attending The Mount Washington Female College of Baltimore, from age 12 to 16.Belle was from a typical Southern family. Father Ben was a store merchant and grocer. Several brothers died before the Civil War. Belle's father joined the Virginia Cavalry. Belle was left with her sister Mary Jane, age 10, her brother Bill, age 4, her mother and grandmother.

When his staff complained about the outspoken, insubordinate female nurse who consistently disregarded the army’s red tape and military procedures, Union Gen. William T. Sherman threw up his hands and exclaimed, “She outranks me, I can’t do a thing in the world.” They were discussing Mary Ann Ball Bickerdyke, a nurse who ran roughshod over anyone who stood in the way of her self appointed duties.

Mary Custis, a frail, blonde girl with aristocratic features , found herself being courted in the summer of 1830 by a distant relative and lifelong friend, Lt. Robert E. Lee. She succumbed to the charms of the intelligent and handsome young officer, and the two were wed at Arlington on June 30, 1831. Despite almost chronic ill health, Mary Lee bore seven children in 14 years. Robert was completely devoted to her, and even though he delighted in the company of pretty women,he was never led astray or involved in any scandal.

Mary Boykin Miller Chesnut was born 31 March 1823 in Stateboro, S.C., eldest child of Mary Boykin and Stephen Decatur Miller, who had served as U.S. congressman and senator and in 1826 was elected governor of South Carolina as a proponent of nullification. Educated first at home and in Camden schools, Mary Miller was sent at 13 to a French boarding school in Charleston, where she remained for two years broken by a six-month stay on her father's cotton plantation in frontier Mississippi. In 1838 Miller died and Mary returned to Camden. On 23 April 1840 she married James Chesnut, Jr. (1815-85), only surviving son of one of South Carolina's largest landowners.

Mary Edwards Walker, one of the nation's 1.8 million women veterans, was the only one to earn the Congressional Medal of Honor, for her service during the Civil War. She, along with thousands of other women, were honored in the newly-dedicated Women in Military Service for America Memorial in October 1997.

s a young girl Mary Elizabeth Bowser was purchased by Richmond’s Van Lew family to be a playmate for young Elizabeth Van Lew. The two girls grew up together and were close friends. After being schooled in Philadelphia, Van Lew returned home an abolitionist and persuaded her widowed mother to free the family slaves. The Van Lews paid for Mary Bowser to attend a private school for women in Philadelphia.

During the Civil War female nurses demonstrated so much courage and determination, that by the second year of the war they had earned as much status and esteem as Florence Nightingale did during the Crimean War. One such nurse was Mary Jane Safford.

Mary Elizabeth Jenkins Surratt was born in May or June of 1823 near Waterloo, Maryland. In 1840, at age 17, she married 28 year old John H. Surratt. The couple went to live on lands that John had inherited from his foster parents, the Neales, in what is now a section of Washington known as Congress Heights. John and Mary had 3 children. Isaac was born on June 2, 1841. Anna was born on January 1, 1843, and John Jr. was born on April 13, 1844.

As a girlhood companion remembered her, Mary Todd was vivacious and impulsive, with an interesting personality--but "she now and then could not restrain a witty, sarcastic speech that cut deeper than she intended...." A young lawyer summed her up in 1840: "the very creature of excitement." All of these attributes marked her life, bringing her both happiness and tragedy.