Soap Suds Row: The Bold Lives of Army Laundresses 1802-1876

Belle Montgomery

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WOMEN WRITING THE WEST 2017 SCHOLARLY NONFICTION WILLA WINNER


Women have always followed the troops, but military laundresses were the first to be carried on the rolls of the U.S. Army. They traveled and lived alongside the soldiers during two of the most important conflicts in United States history: the Civil War and the war on the western frontier. A few laundresses made names for themselves. Laundresses who got written up in records, diaries, and newspapers were often involved in colorful or unfortunate circumstances. No, they were not all loose women. Some were; however, most were simply brave, adventurous, and unorthodox women. They marched with the army for hundreds of miles, carrying their babies and tugging small children behind them. Among the first non-native women on lonely frontier outposts, they waited in frightened huddles in camps and forts for their soldier-husbands to return from dangerous campaigns.


Susie King Taylor, born a slave, taught both black children and soldiers to read and write between washing piles of laundry. A Mexican-American War laundress was eulogized as able to whip any man, fair fight or foul; shoot a pistol better than anyone; and outplay or out-cheat any gambler. A well-known laundress from the Indian Wars period, Mrs. Nash, kept a secret that remained undiscovered until her death. Little note was made of laundresses who worked hard day after day, like Maggie Flood, who faced special family challenges on the frontier.

Link for Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DJW8C14/?tag=civilwartalkc-20
 
According to "Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay" Mrs. Nash was actually a male who married three male soldiers and stayed on with the troops upon their leaving the service. Mrs. Nash co-inhabited with a Corporal in 1878 and died at Fort Meade while he was away on extended duty . The ladies of the Fort made the discovery when they went to bury Mrs. Nash.
source: /books.google.com/books?id=T6exSnJz8icC&pg=RA1-PT32&
 
According to "Forty Miles a Day on Beans and Hay" Mrs. Nash was actually a male who married three male soldiers and stayed on with the troops upon their leaving the service. Mrs. Nash co-inhabited with a Corporal in 1878 and died at Fort Meade while he was away on extended duty . The ladies of the Fort made the discovery when they went to bury Mrs. Nash.
source: /books.google.com/books?id=T6exSnJz8icC&pg=RA1-PT32&
Oh wow! That is quite the secret! I wonder what the corporal had to say when he came home?
 
Thanks for the thread Belle! I've always had a ton of respect for these women. It's tough enough conveying what it was like for women patching men together much less laundresses. Can you imagine their actual jobs? That clothing would have been perfect for one of those laundry detergent commercials we used to see where they run over a sheet with tractors and trucks, stampede soccer teams over it, drag it around a field and smear some oil on it- LOOK, it's perfect now! That clothing? Lice, blood, stuff-we-don't-want-to-know, sweat, mud- you'd have to hose it off on the lawn before sticking it in your machine.

Bet they have some awfully good stories, glad to see the book!
 
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