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      Although the Motor Voter Law has finally been implemented in Virginia, not enough women are registering to vote. We women cannot vote if we are not registered. To help women become registered to vote, ask women-centered organizations of which you are a part (such as day care centers, community centers, women's health centers, etc.) to sponsor a voter registration cite. To sponsor a cite, contact your local voting registrar and ask them to set up a booth to register people at your location.

      Women have always followed their men (husbands, fathers, brother) to war and served them as cooks, maids, laundresses, and, when the men were wounded, as nurses. Other women camp followers were traders, buying soap, food, newspapers, and other items in the local towns and selling them in the military camps. Of course, women plied their oldest profession, too. Few people know that women also served as combatants in all American Wars.

      Although women were technically barred from military service, immediately after the war ended four hundred women of all classes are known to have enlisted in the armies of both sides during the American Civil War. Since soldiers were hard to recruit and were desperately needed by both sides, the pre-induction physical exam was often perfunctory: sufficient only to verify that the trigger finger worked or that the teeth were strong enough to open a mime ball cartridge. The intense sense of privacy prevalent during the Victorian era could easily explain a why a men was reluctant to bath or use the facilities in the presence of others. Further, many under-age boys joined the army: a woman could pass as an underage or womanish man. Further, it was as rare then for a woman to wear pants as it is today for a man to wear a dress. So the thinking went: if it wore pants and claimed to be a man, it must be a man and women disguised as men successfully joined both armies.

      Some women joined the army out of devotion to the cause and love of country, others for the adventure, and still others for the money. Some saw this as an opportunity to leave a perhaps unhappy childhood home or to expand their boundaries. Others joined to remain with their loved ones: their husband, father, or brother.

      The disguises of some women were easily penetrated and they were soon out of the army. Almost daily, newspapers reported stories of women who were discharged from the army. Six women had their disguises penetrated when they gave birth. (Does this mean that men would rather think their comrades were homosexuals than that a woman was a soldier among them?) Some women were more successful and their disguises were penetrated only after they had been seriously wounded or killed. How many women soldiers were killed in the war and buried in graves with their male names will never be known. Some women's disguises were never penetrated and their stories came to light only many years after the end of the war when they choose to tell them. Other women who survived the war undiscovered took their stories to the grave.

      So on this Memorial Day, as we pause to thank the many soldiers, sailors, and airmen who gave their lives to keep us safe and free, don't forget the many women warriors who gave their lives in service to our country.

      For more information read, Patriots in Disguise, Women Warriors of the Civil War by Richard Hall or An Uncommon Soldier: The Civil War Letters of Sarah Rosetta Wakeman alias Pvt. Lyon Wakeman. . . . edited by Lauren Cook Burgess

      Hundreds of women marched steadily up to the mouth of a hundred cannon pouring out fire and smoke, shot and shell, mowing down the advancing hosts like grass; men, horses, and colors going down in confusion, disappearing in clouds of smoke; the only sound, the screaming of shells, the crackling of musketry, the thunder of artillery. . . through all this women were sustained by the enthusiasm born of love of country and liberty.

      History of Woman Suffrage by Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Matilda Gage, taken from An Uncommon Soldier page 2

      On Memorial Day, we remember the women warriors who died for our freedom. Women have always fought along side men and lead women and men into battle. Here are a few in a long line of remarkable women warriors.

      Hatshesut, (c. 1520-1483 BCE) ancient Egypt's greatest woman Pharaoh, this 18th dynasty queen was crowned c. 1503 BCE and ruled until her death in c. 1483. She lead men into battle to claim the masculine power to rule.

      Deborah (fl. 1296 BCE) biblical judge of and prophetess in Israel who successfully lead troops in a war against the Canaanite invader Sisera.

      Semiramis (9th century BCE) After conquering Babylonia, the Assyrian Queen Sammuramat erected the Hanging Gardens, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World as a memorial to her success. For the first time in history, landlocked Assyria's borders touched not one sea, but four.

      During the Middle Ages, nuns fought for many reasons: as self-defense against outlaws, to become adjuncts to the fighting monks of the Crusades, to defend their lands and convents in an unlawful age. From the 6th century to the 16th century, history is replete with stories of warrior nuns, abbesses, and saints. Saints Barbara, Catherine, and Ursula are patrons to many, including warriors.

      Joan of Arc (1412-1431) probably the best known woman warrior of the modern era, the maid of Orleans, the French national heroine, successfully lead troops into battle against the English to liberate France. Captured, she was condemned as a witch, in part for wearing men's clothes, and was burned at the stake.

      Closer to home and more recent in time, like women from earliest antiquity the world over, ordinary women fought America's wars, too. Colonists fought to defend their homes against Indian attack while Native American women fought to repel invaders from their homelands. Women fought in the Revolutionary War, in the War of 1812, in the Civil War, in both World Wars, in Korea, in Vietnam, in Desert Storm and in many other wars and skirmishes in between.

      Women soldiers and sailors, later marines and airwomen, served for many reasons. Often women fought in disguise because if they were known to be women, they would be sent home. Many women warriors are known today only because some accident exposed their secret. Still others took their secret to the grave.

      Women were camp followers, too. Often portrayed as prostitutes, many were wives of the soldiers for whom they cooked, cared, and cleaned and, if necessary nursed. The services these women rendered were no less important to the successful completion of the war than the services rendered today by soldiers who are not front line troops.

      So this Memorial Day, when talk turns to the many men who died defending their homes and country, talk about the many women, high born and low, who died defending their homes and country, too.

      Salmonson, Jessica Amanda, The Encyclopedia of Amazons: Women Warriors from Antiquity to the Modern Era , Anchor Books, 1991

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