MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

Gender crimes are often committed during times of political instability, such as during armed conflict, yet rape has long been an invisible war crime. The American Civil War is often cited as a “low-rape” war, but these allegations are inaccurate and misguided by low rates of reported rapes during the Civil War. The infrequency of rape cases presented in courts-martial records do not mean rape did not happen, but that the crime was rarely prosecuted during the nineteenth century. An examination of rape in the Civil War disputes claims that the Civil War was a low-rape war through research on the nineteenth century American legal system which demonstrates how biases in the system prevented women from seeking justice for sexual assaults made against them, and through case studies of black rape victims during the war which reveal that real rape did actually occur.