“Father, I will not marry Hugh, so help me God!” “I do like him; but I can never marry him”: Subversion of the Traditional Marriage Plot in Augusta Evans’s Macaria; or, Altars of Sacrifice and Frances E. W. Harper’s Iola Leroy, or Shadows Uplifted

The Civil War disrupted the deep-rooted patriarchal culture of the South, and thus disrupted the traditional roles held by Southern women. By taking on supportive roles as nurses, laundresses, cooks, and spies, women were no longer confined to the domestic sphere. For Black women especially, the Civil War provided new opportunities to continue ongoing battles for freedom. The relocation of women to camp created tension between old codes of female civility and the new demands of the Civil War, ultimately resulting in the emergence of a new, adapted code of civility for Southern women. Unfortunately, the influence Civil War camps had in shaping Southern female identity is grossly underdeveloped. By examining the setting of war camps and the disparity of civil conventions across race and gender, this research will contribute to literary scholarship by illuminating how the Civil War altered Southern female identity for white and Black women, respectively.