Summary Of The Novel 'Two Girls Of Gettysburg'

During the most brutal war of the United States, women took the field in ways never imagined. In the historical fiction novel Two Girls of Gettysburg, Rosanna finds herself amidst the chaos on the battlefield, putting the needs of injured soldiers above her own. Rosanna was never the girl to get dirty, for what would the girls at the academy she attended think? However, as the needs of her country call her husband to fight, she follows her spouse where it was thought no girl should go. She, along with many other women, began to realize the soldiers’ need for their service. Women in both the North and South risked their lives to serve the injured, sick, and diseased men whom many would have not lived without the nurses’ self-sacrificing care. In the Civil War, each nurse was essential to the
However, one thing that is inaccurate in the novel is that Rosanna would have not been able to just become a nurse in real life. She would’ve had to send an application and then be accepted, especially since she was going to nurse in the South where Dix managed nurse applicants (United States). Aside from this detail the novel seems to be historically accurate. Although the novel is mostly accurate, many details are left out that would help the reader’s understanding about nursing significantly. For example, it is never mentioned in the novel how much opposition there was to women being nurses in the Civil War. Now, nursing is seen as mostly a female’s profession which is ironic because of all the opposition to women being nurses during that time. Nursing in the Civil War changed the world’s view on women, and this novel changes the reader’s view on the Civil War and the women who cared for the injured and sick