Maryland women played a variety of roles during the Civil War. Some are well known, like the Eastern Shore born activist Harriet Tubman and Anna Ella Carroll.  Others have lesser fame, like the group of the southern sympathizers known as the Monument Street Girls.

 

Join the Baltimore Civil War Roundtable as we host Baltimore City archivist Rob Schoeberlein for his presentation of Maryland Women during the Civil War.

 

Our tribute to Women’s History Month will be held on Tuesday, March 24, at 7:30 p.m. in the library of Hiss United Methodist Church, 8700 Harford Road, Parkville Md., 21234. (From the beltway (I-695) the church will be on your right. Pull into the upper parking lot-the lot just before the church building- and walk to the semi-circle at the front. Enter the first door on the right, go up the stairs to the second floor and turn left then right into the library (rm #208).

 

Rob Schoeberlein is the Baltimore City Archivist and a Trustee of the Maryland Center for History and Culture, where he chairs the Library Committee and is a member of the Publications Committee. He earned his Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Maryland College Park and has more than 30 years of research and archives experience. He has published topics ranging from Baltimore Civil War era history to 20th century reform movements. His book chapter in The Civil War in Maryland Reconsidered (2021) is an overview of women's wartime and post-wartime activities. Tonight, he will recount their efforts, ranging from nursing care and charitable work to smuggling and spying, with the tales of a few female soldier stories added as well. 

 

Rob is a native Marylander and lives in Howard County.

 

Remember, Baltimore Civil War Roundtable will host Baltimore City archivist Rob Schoeberlein for his presentation of Maryland Women during the Civil War on Tuesday, March 24, at 7:30 p.m. in the library of Hiss United Methodist Church. We urge you to attend in person. If you can’t, register for the Zoom at

https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tfSwsQOUQLSUGyynKrNFiQ. Once registered, you will receive an email with a link to the presentation. 

 

 

Rob Schoeberlein

Minutes

Our March meeting was our 499th.  The meeting had 7 in-person attendees (including the speaker) and 10 attendees on Zoom.

 

Our speaker was Dr. Robert W. Schoeberlein, an archivist with the Baltimore City Archives.  The topic of Dr. Schoeberlein’s presentation was “Sisters in Conflict: Baltimore Women and Benevolence During the Civil War.”  

 

The Civil War profoundly divided the women of Baltimore, just as it divided the city as a whole.  Women supported both sides of the war in multiple ways, including conducting fundraising fairs, working as nurses, providing food, etc.  Women on both sides also made battle flags.

 

Many Baltimore citizens gave aid to Union soldiers passing through the city.  Some gave shelter to Pennsylvania troops during the riot on April 19, 1861.  When Benjamin Butler came to the city, American flags were flying all over.  Following the arrest of pro-Southern legislators, in June 1861 Maryland conducted a special election to choose new representatives to the Maryland General Assembly.  The number of voters was far smaller than usual, to the great advantage of the Unionists.

 

By the end of June, there was a Union Relief Association.  The association eventually included facilities including a kitchen, dining halls, and an infirmary.   At the National Hospital (across from Camden Street Railroad Station), as well as Newton University Hospital, pro-Union women worked as nursing aides and provided entertainment.   They also formed relief associations.   Elizabeth Graham was involved with relief rooms and organized sociables.  She contracted “camp fever” and almost died.  There was also a Union Reading Room where men could go and read magazines and other publications.

 

According to Dr. Schoeberlein, the core of African American military recruits from Baltimore were men who had been arrested and given shovels, and made to labor on fortifications.  There was a Colored Ladies Union Association and a First Colored Christian Commission. The Fourth USCT Infantry was recruited in the summer of 1863, and the women of Bethel AME Church assisted in the creation of the regimental flag.  

 

In 1863, some Baltimore women decided that there should be a fair for sick and wounded Union soldiers.  Supplies came into Baltimore from most of Maryland.  At the Maryland Institute, the Baltimore Sanitary Fair was held over a fifteen-day period and about $83,000 was netted. In November 1864, the Colored State Union Fair was held at Bethel AME Hall.  Frederick Douglass was a speaker, and the women raised about $1,800, a respectable amount under the circumstances.

 

Dr. Schoeberlein said that a majority of wealthy Baltimoreans sympathized with the Confederacy.  Many women greeted Confederate POWs with cakes and other food and supplies–something that was hated by the U.S. authorities.  Pro-Confederate women presented flags to Maryland Confederate regiments and to a company of the 21st Virginia Infantry which consisted mostly of Baltimoreans.  Jennie Cary put the pro-Confederate song “Maryland, My

 

Maryland” to music and also (with her sister Hetty and cousin Constance) sewed the first Confederate battle flag.  Matilda Saunders was among those who smuggled supplies to Confederate soldiers.  

 

In 1866, after the war had ended, hundreds of pro-Confederate women banded together to aid impoverished Southerners.  The result was the Southern Relief Fair. Many items were raffled off, including some relating to George Washington.  A total of about $160,000 was raised.  In 1867,  the Ladies Depository was formed to help people in the South.  

In August of 1862, Senator James Lane organized and recruited the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry Regiment. They became the first African American regiment to fight in the Civil War when they defeated rebel forces during the skirmish at Island Mound, Missouri in October of 1862, a half year before the formation of the United States Colored troops (USCT).

 

The regiment was nearly decimated when they were ambushed by confederates in the Battle of Poison Springs in April of 1864. Join the Baltimore Civil War Roundtable as Temple University Prof. Dr. Greg Urwin presents "Cut to Pieces and Gone to Hell: The Poison Spring Massacre" at our February meeting.

 

The meeting will be held on Tuesday, February 24, at 7:30 p.m. in the library of Hiss United Methodist Church, 8700 Harford Road, Parkville Md., 21234. (From the beltway (I-695) the church will be on your right. Pull into the upper parking lot-the lot just before the church building- and walk to the semi-circle at the front. Enter the first door on the right, go up the stairs to the second floor and turn left then right into the library (rm #208).

 

Dr. Gregory J. W. Urwin is a professor of military history at Temple University and the author of several books and articles. He has been at Temple University since 1999. Born in Cleveland, Urwin graduated from Borromeo Seminary High School in 1973. He graduated summa cum laude from Borromeo College of Ohio in 1977, received a Master of Arts degree from John Carroll University in 1979, and earned a Master of Arts from the University of Notre Dame in 1981. He also received a Ph.D. from Notre Dame. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on “The Defenders on Wake Island".

 

Among Dr. Urwin’s achievements are: Former General Editor, Campaigns and Commanders Series, University of Oklahoma Press; Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Research Institute; Fellow, Company of Military Historians: The Company of Military Historians – Exploring the material culture of the military in the Americas from Pre-Columbian times through the War on Terror. His Latest Podcast: Gettysburg: What the Filmmakers Got Right and Wrong with Historian Gregory J.W. Urwin – YouTube. His latest Digital Publication: The Yorktown Tragedy: Washington's Slave Roundup - Journal of the American Revolution. An Excerpt from Urwin’s Latest Documentary: The Heroic First Black Regiment of the Civil War | Black Patriots: Heroes of the Civil War is on YouTube.

 

Remember, join the BCWRT as Dr. Gregory J.W. Urwin presents "Cut to Pieces and Gone to Hell: The Poison Spring Massacre" at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, February 24, 2026, at Hiss United Methodist Church. If you can’t attend in person, register for the Zoom at: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/wtUg108eS9OkSAJRcpf0NQ

 

 

Minutes

Our February meeting was our 498th.  The meeting was exclusively on Zoom and had 16 attendees.  However, because the speaker did not attend due to a scheduling mix up, the meeting ended after a half hour and was rescheduled for March 3. During the half hour, members discussed various Civil War related events that took place in late February.

 

The March 3 meeting, again exclusively on Zoom, had 14 attendees.  Our speaker was Dr. Gregory Urwin. The topic of Dr. Urwin’s presentation was: “Cut to Pieces and Gone to Hell: The Poison Spring Massacre.”

 

Between March 23 and May 3, 1864, Union Major General Frederick Steele (with a total of roughly 9,000 men) led the Camden Expedition through Arkansas.  Steele intended to join Major General Nathaniel Banks at Shreveport, Louisiana for the Red River Campaign.   Steele’s men reached the city of Camden on April 15.  The reaction of Camden’s population was very divided–most slaves rejoiced while most whites were frightened.  By this point, the men were quite hungry–they had been on half rations for some time.  In addition, they needed forage for their livestock.  Having learned that bushels of corn were located relatively nearby, Steele dispatched a force to capture them, led by Colonel James M. Williams of the 1st Kansas Colored Infantry.

 

Largely composed of former slaves from Missouri and Arkansas, the 1st Kansas had been the first African American regiment in the Union army to see combat during the war.  When it embarked on the forage expedition, the regiment had only rested for 15 out of the previous 78 hours.  Williams’ forces also included the 18th Iowa and other units, totaling 1,169 men.  To oppose Steele’s force was 3,621 Confederate cavalry and artillery organized by Brigadier General John Marmaduke.  A division under Brigadier General Samuel Maxey included the 2nd Indian Brigade, which contained two regiments of Choctaw Indians, totaling 680 men.  Confederates managed to burn many (not all) of the bushels before Steele’s men could reach them.

 

The Battle of Poison Spring occurred on April 18, 1864. At first, Williams thought he was only facing a relatively small number of Confederates, but he subsequently became aware that a larger number were approaching and that his men needed to be redeployed.  Major Richard Ward formed the 1st Kansas in an L-shaped line to protect the forage train.  Although the regiment became caught in a crossfire, with three Confederate batteries concentrating their fire on its center, the men remained cool. After 30 minutes, the artillery fire slackened and a Texas brigade under Charles DeMorse approached the 1st.  The men of the 1st took aim at them with buck and ball and held firm.   

 

The Texans attacked a second time.  This time the 29th Texas Cavalry, one of De Morse’s regiments, recognized the 1st Kansas–the two regiments had fought each other at the Battle of Honey Springs (in the Indian Territory) on July 17, 1863, which was a Union victory.   After 15 minutes, the Texans were again beaten back.  However, a third, well-coordinated attack slammed into the regiment, which was now facing four brigades.  The 1st had its line broken and retreated through the forage train, which the Choctaws surged forward to loot.  Detachments of three regiments of Kansas cavalrymen (the 2nd, 6th and 14th) likewise retreated, and in doing so left dangerous gaps in Williams’ line.  

 

In the aftermath of the battle, a massacre occurred.  Confederates killed wounded members of the 1st Kansas on the field, with some members of the 29th Texas yelling: “Where is the First Kansas Nigger now?” and other members responding: “All cut to pieces and gone to hell by bad management!”  The Choctaws stripped and scalped wounded African American soldiers.  This massacre has gone down as the worst example of racial violence in Arkansas history and stands as the most enduring legacy of Poison Springs.  In addition to a desire on the part of the Texans for revenge for Honey Springs, Dr. Urwin said, white Southerners in general believed that African Americans were savages who needed to be controlled by violence.  

 

Total Union casualties were 301 killed, wounded, and missing, 182 of which were suffered by the 1st Kansas Colored.  Of the 182, 117 were killed–a figure which itself indicates that something unusual happened (Civil War units virtually always lost far more wounded than killed in a battle, not the other way around).  Confederate casualties were estimated to be under 145.  

 

For Steele’s command, the loss of the forage train meant prolonged hunger.  On the evening of April 26, Steele withdrew from Camden.  In the Battle of Jenkins’ Ferry, on April 30, the Federals were victorious.  During the battle, the 2nd Kansas Colored Infantry avenged their 1st Kansas comrades.  Together with the 29th Iowa, the regiment successfully charged a Missouri Confederate artillery battery and bayoneted captured artillerymen.  Later, members of the 2nd Kansas wandered the battlefield, shooting or cutting the throats of wounded Confederates.  

  

The American Civil War was the focal point of many firsts in our history. One of those firsts was the creation of the Medal of Honor. Amazingly, only one woman has been awarded the Medal of Honor and that was the only female surgeon serving the United States Army, Dr. Mary Edwards Walker. 

 

This pioneering woman is the subject of the Baltimore Civil War Roundtable’s February meeting as Dr. Theresa Kaminski presents a lecture on her book; speaks on her book; Dr. Mary Walker's Civil War: One Woman's Journey to the Medal of Honor and the Fight for Woman's Rights.

 

The meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 27, at 7:30 p.m. in the library of Hiss United Methodist Church, 8700 Harford Road, Parkville Md., 21234. (From the beltway (I-695) the church will be on your right. Pull into the upper parking lot-the lot just before the church building- and walk to the semi-circle at the front. Enter the first door on the right, go up the stairs to the second floor and turn left then right into the library (rm #208).

 

Theresa Kaminski, Ph.D. is a professor emerita of history from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. As an author, she specializes in writing about scrappy women in American history.

 

In 2020, Theresa published ; Dr. Mary Walker's Civil War: One Woman's Journey to the Medal of Honor and the Fight for Woman's Rights . Her most recent book, Queen of the West: The Life and Times of Dale Evans, was released in April 2022. She is also the author of a trilogy of books about American women in the Philippine Islands, including Angels of the Underground. Theresa is currently working on a book about Jane Grant, a feminist, writer, and co-founder of The New Yorker magazine.

 

Remember, join the BCWRT as Dr. Theresa Kaminski presents; Dr. Mary Walker's Civil War: One Woman's Journey to the Medal of Honor and the Fight for Woman's Rights.  at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, January 27, 2026, at Hiss United Methodist Church. If you can’t attend in person, register for the Zoom at: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/zk2m3YUkTmKZAGH2Fq92rw

 

   

Dr. Mary E. Walker                              Dr. Theresa Kaminski

Minutes

Our January meeting was our 497th.  Due to unfavorable weather conditions, the meeting was Zoom only.  There were 15 attendees.

 

Our speaker was Dr. Theresa Kaminski, a professor emerita of history from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.  Dr. Kaminski spoke on her book entitled Dr. Mary Walker’s Civil War: One Woman’s Journey to the Medal of Honor and the Fight for Women’s Rights.  

 

Mary Walker (1832-1919) was the only female surgeon in the Union army.  Born in Oswego, New York, her parents were freethinkers and only nominally Christian.  Growing up, Walker was very aware of the women’s rights and abolitionist movements as well as reforms in public education, including increased opportunities for girls.  Additionally, she became attracted to the dress reform movement, which promoted the idea that the ability of women to dress as they pleased was important to their being equal members of society.

 

As a teenager, Walker decided to become a doctor.  She faced a serious obstacle–very few medical schools admitted women at the time.  However, she was accepted into Syracuse Medical College and attended from 1853 to 1855.  She was one of the top students in her class.  At the time, Syracuse was part of the homeopathic movement, which was reluctant to use pharmaceuticals and surgery.

 

In September 1861, five months after the outbreak of the Civil War, Walker went to Washington DC to meet with Secretary of War Simon Cameron.  She asked for a military commission to serve as a surgeon.  Cameron turned her down, essentially saying that women were simply not granted commissions in the U.S. Army.  Instead, he suggested that she look for a nursing position in a hospital.  She was accepted as a volunteer surgeon at Indiana Hospital, and served there from 1861 to 1862, while at the same time going around Washington looking for a commission.  She became known as a very helpful doctor.     

 

It wasn’t just men who Walker faced resistance from–some women opposed her as well.  Dorothea Dix, Superintendent of Army Nurses, didn’t approve of young and attractive nurses working for the army.  In 1862, Walker started to branch out from Washington to where Union armies were located.  However, she was never a battlefield surgeon or nurse.  Walker was at Gettysburg shortly after the battle, however, and that same month (July 1863) crossed paths with Dr. Esther “Hettie” Painter in Piedmont. Painter had decided to travel with her husband, who was part of the quartermaster corps.  They ran across a small farm operated by the Shacklett sisters.  Union soldiers were confiscating the sister’s property and were going to burn down their house as punishment for resisting.  Walker and the Painters successfully intervened on the sisters’ behalf.

 

In the fall of 1863, Walker met General George Thomas at a military hospital in Chattanooga. Thomas made her a contract assistant surgeon in the Army of the Cumberland in March 1864.  At the behest of Thomas and Colonel Daniel McCook Jr. of the 52nd Ohio Infantry, she performed intelligence gathering.  One day, she was detained by a part of Confederate General D. H. Hill’s command and taken to Castle Thunder in Richmond.  From April to August 1864,

 

Walker was a POW.  Although released as part of a prisoner exchange, she suffered physical and emotional damage from being a prisoner.  From September 1864 to April 1865, Walker was head of the medical department at the female military prison in Louisville, Kentucky, and she worked at a refugee hospital in Clarksville, Tennessee from April to May 1865..  

 

After the war, President Andrew Johnson, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, and Judge Advocate General (JAG) Joseph Holt decided to recognize Walker by awarding her the Medal of Honor, which she received in November 1865.  To this day, she remains the only woman to ever be awarded the medal.  During 1916-17, a military review board rescinded many medals–including hers–but she “disregarded” the decision.  And in 1977, the Army Board of Correction of Military Records decided to reinstate her medal.  

 

After the war, Walker struggled.  She received a small government pension but found it hard to practice medicine because of the health problems she had developed as a POW.  In addition to her medal, Walker has been commemorated in other ways–for example, a Mary Walker quarter currently exists, and a fort was named after her (though the fort has subsequently been renamed).