Winner of the 1989 Jefferson Davis Award of the Museum of the Confederacy, 1989.  Winner of the Julia Cherry Spruill Prize of the Southern Association of Women Historians, 1991. "A well-written book of interest to both Confederate Civil War buffs and students of women's history in America. Rable has done an excellent job of weaving quotes from the private writings of Southern women into his narrative."
Civil War News "It is an absorbing work, clearly written and filled with striking material gathered from an impressive variety of sources, including manuscript collections from every Confederate state, memoirs, newspapers, and public records, especially War Department records and correspondence between women and Confederate public figures. . . . Every future scholar of the topic will have to reckon with this important book."
Reviews in American History "This well-written presentation expands an understanding of Southern women and the Civil War's impact on those who bore the burdens of the home front."
North Carolina Historical Review