Dr. Thomas Curran Bio

Dr. Thomas F. Curran earned his doctorate from the University of Notre Dame in 1993 and currently teaches American history at Cor Jesu Academy, a Catholic high school for girls in St. Louis, Missouri. A native of Massachusetts, he is the author of Soldiers of Peace: Civil War Pacifism and the Postwar Radical Peace Movement (Fordham University Press, The North’s Civil War Series, 2003); Women Making War: Female Confederate Prisoners and Union Military Justice (Southern Illinois University Press, 2020); most recently Funny Thing About the Civil War: The Humor of an American Tragedy (McFarland Publishers, 2023) and numerous articles and book chapters. 

Dr. Curran’s presentation is drawn from his book Women Making War. During the Civil War, at least four hundred and forty women are known to have been arrested in St. Louis or to have been sent there after their arrest elsewhere. They faced charges related to offenses ranging from overt displays of support for the southern Confederacy to offering aid and comfort to those fighting against Federal authority to more direct activities such as spying, smuggling, sabotage, and even service in the Confederate army itself. Federal authorities took the rebellious women's activities seriously, considering them of a treasonable nature, and responded with measures they deemed the women's actions justly deserved. For a majority of these women, arrest and imprisonment were consequences of conscious decisions they made to do what they could to advance the southern cause and assist those in armed rebellion against the United States government. What happened in St. Louis had a broader impact on the Federal army’s treatment of civilians, especially women, elsewhere. This presentation focuses on one of those women, Drucilla Sappington. Through her experiences, many of the important and interesting aspects of this story come to light.