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They Fought like Demons: Women Soldiers in the American Civil War. By DeAnne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2002. xvi, 277 pp. $29.95, ISBN 0-8071-2806-6.)
In my survey class about women during the Civil War, students are always skeptical when I mention women who disguised themselves as soldiers to fight in battle. In the past, to convince them, I showed them first a photograph of Lauren M. Cook dressed as an administrator in a North Carolina state university (courtesy of a Smithsonian Magazine article on Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, Cook's first foray into the history of Civil War women soldiers). Then I put up a photo of her dressed very convincingly as a Civil War soldier. The students are usually floored, but they always have more questions about women warriors than I can answer. Until now. DeAnne Blanton and Lauren Cook's book is...