Behind the Rifle

Shelby Harriel is an instructor of mathematics at Pearl River Community College. Her research on women soldiers of the Civil War has been published in various newspapers, magazines, websites, blogs, and brochures for the National Park Service and state historic sites. She has given numerous presentations about women soldiers in over ten states.

Readers with a particular interest in female soldiers will admire and benefit from Harriel's dogged detective work. . .--Carol Sheriff "Journal of Women's History" In addition to identifying new examples, [Harriel] succeeds in shedding fresh light on old stories or, indeed, debunking and clarifying previous misunderstandings. Her work raises interesting and pertinent questions about how we define who is, and who is remembered as, a soldier.--Rachel Williams "Journal of American Studies" Harriel compiles rich information from newspapers, personal and official correspondence, service and pension records, the census, and memoirs. . . . Readers with a particular interest in female soldiers will admire Harriel's dogged detective work.--Carol Sheriff "Journal of Women's History Volume 33, Number 4, Winter 2021" This is a fascinating book - careful and confident when dealing with facts, shrewd when judging conflicts and choices, eloquent when speaking for those whose voices are lost to history.--Allen Boyer "hottytoddy.com" Behind the Rifle is notably precise. . . . The care with which Harriel approaches the significance of the presence of these female soldiers, and how we should make sense of them today, is also notable and welcome.--Lyde Cullen Sizer, Sarah Lawrence College "The Journal of American History" Harriel offers fresh evidence and cogent insight into the phenomenon of women soldiers fighting and dying in the American Civil War. Her exhaustive research brings to light stories previously undocumented and is presented in an engaging narrative that crucially places these women in their social and historical context. Behind the Rifle is a welcome addition to both Civil War and women's history. I couldn't be more pleased to recommend it.--DeAnne Blanton, coauthor of They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the American Civil War The old argument that there is nothing new to write about the Civil War is obviously wrong, as illustrated by Shelby Harriel's Behind the Rifle: Women Soldiers in Civil War Mississippi. Full of new research and insightful analysis, Behind the Rifle provides a wonderful overview of the important role of fighting women in Mississippi's Civil War history.--Timothy B. Smith, author of Mississippi in the Civil War: The Home Front; Shiloh: Conquer or Perish; and The Real Horse Soldiers: Benjamin Grierson's Epic 1863 Civil War Raid Through Mississippi