The Homefront as America’s Unseen Campaign
My Reading Room: Read. Reflect. Repeat.
Where my sass meets source material.
Welcome to my military library—a curated collection of gritty memoirs, overlooked histories, and the stories traditional textbooks tend to skate past. It’s eclectic by design. A little chaotic. Very lived-in. No two shelves agree—and that’s the point.
Memoirs and personal accounts are read critically—situated in context, weighed against archival records, and treated not as unfiltered fact but as historically grounded perspectives. Yes, it’s organized. No, not alphabetically.
From bourbon- or coffee-stained war journals to deep-dive academic works, this is where service, grit, and sharp (sometimes sassy) commentary collide. If you’re looking for truth with a little cynicism, perspective with heart, and a few footnotes that land like gut punches—you’re in the right place.
~Mel
 CampfollowingA History of the Military Wife. By Betty Sowers Alt and Bonnie Domrose Stone |  Women Camp Followers of the American RevolutionBy Walter Hart Blumenthal |  Women Of Empire19th Century Army Officers' Wives in India and the U.S. West. By Verity McInnis |
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 On the Psychology of Military IncompetenceBy Dr. Norman F. Dixon |  Charlie Company's Journey HomeThe Forgotten Impact on the Wives of Vietnam Veterans. By Andrew West. |  Roses and ThornsA Handbook for the U.S. Marines Enlisted Wives |
 The Army WifeWhat she ought to know about the customs of the service and the management of an Army household. By Nancy Shea |  Vietnam WivesFacing the Challenges of Life with Veterans Suffering Post-traumatic Stress: 2nd ed. Revised and Expanded, By Aphrodiite Matsakis, Ph.D. |  The Army Woman HandbookBy Clella Reeves Collins |
 Peacekeepers and their WivesAmerican Participation in the Multinational Force and Observers. By David R. Segal and Mady Wechsler Segal |  Waiting: one Wife's year of the Vietnam WarBy Linda Moore-Lanning |  the American Revolution: A World WarEdited by: David K .Allison & Larrie D, Ferrerio |
 A Black Woman's Civil War MemoirsBy Susie King Taylor |  Following the DrumWomen at the Valley Forge Encampment. By Nancy K. Loane |  Military Wives in Arizona TerritoryA History of Women Who Shaped the Frontier. By Jan Cleere |
 Following the GuidonBy Elizabeth B. Custer |  Liberty's DaughterThe Revolutionary Experience of American Women, 1750-1800. By Mary Beth Norton |  The OriginalsThe Women's Auxiliary Ferry Squadron of World War II. By Sarah Byrn Rickman |
 TogetherAnnals of an Army Wife. By Katherine Tupper Marshall |  Army Wives on the American FrontierLiving by the Bugles. By Anne Bruner Eales |  They Also ServesWives of Civil War Generals. By Robert Wilson & Carl Clair |
 Wives, Slave and Servant GirlsAdvertisements for female runaways in American newspapers, 1770-1783. By Don N. Hagist |  The League of WivesThe Untold Story of the Women Who Took on the U.S. Government to Bring Their Husbands Home. By Heath Hardage Lee |  The Coming of the Civil War1837-1861, By John Niven |
 A People Numerous & ArmedReflections on the Military Struggle for American Independence- Revised Edition- By John Shy |  World History Of WarFareBy Christon I Archer, John R. Ferris,Holger H. Herwig,Timothy H.E. Travers |  It's My Country TooWomen's Military Stories from the American Revolution to Afghanistan. Edited by Jerri Bell & Tracy Crow. Forward by Kayla Williams |
 Soap Suds RowThe Bold Lives of Army Laundresses: 1802-1876, By Jennifer J. Lawrence |  The Air Force Wife HandbookA Complete Social Guide, 2006 By Ann Crossley & Carol A. Keller |  The Air Force Wife HandbookA Complete Social Guide, 1992 By Ann Crossley & Carol A. Keller |
 Battle Cries And Lullabies Women in WarFrom Prehistory to the Present. By Linda Grant De Pauw |  The Women of 76By Sally Smith Booth |  WACsWomen's Army Corps, By Vera S. Williams |
 At Freedom's TableMore Than 200 Years of Recipes & Remembrances from Military Wives. By Carolyn Quick Tillery |  Invisible WomenJunior Enlisted Army Wives. By Margaret C. Harrell |  Naval Wives & MistressesBy Margarette Lincoln |
 Women Sailors & Sailors' WomenAn Untold Maritime History. By David Cordingly |  Naval Wives & Mistresses1st Edition, By Margarette Lincoln |  The Colonel's Lady on the Western FrontierThe Correspondence of Alice Kirk Grierson. Edited and with an introduction by Shirley Anne Leckie |
 Revolutionary MothersWomen in the Struggle for America’s Independence by Carol Berkin |  Wings of Our Ownby Paulette K. Johnson |  Women as Army SurgeonsBeing The History Of The Women's Hospital Corps 1914-1919. By Flora Murray |
 The Custer StoryBy Margueri Merington |  Uncle Sam's BridesThe World of Military Wives. By Bonnie Domrose Stone, Betty Sowers Alt |  The Journal of Women's Civil War HistoryFrom the Home Front to the Front Lines: Volume 2. Accounts of the Sacrifice, Achievement, and Service of American Women, 1861-1865 Edited by Eileen Conklin |
 Army Letters From An Officer's Wife1871-1878: Experience on the Western Frontier with the United States Army. By Frances M.A. Roe |  Behind the ScenesThe Tales of American Military Spouses Making a Difference a Military Spouse Legacy Project. ByCara Loken |  Founding MothersWomen of America in the Revolutionary Era. By Linda Grant Depauw |
 After the Hero's WelcomeA Pow Wife's Story of the Battle Against a New Enemy. By Dorothy Howard McDaniel |  My Army Life and the Fort Phil Kearney MassacreBy Frances C. Carrington |  Women in the Civil WarBy Mary Elizabeth Massey |
 While They're At WarThe True Story of American Families on the Homefront 1st Edition. By Kristin Henderson |  Since You Went AwayWorld War II Letters from American Women on the Home Front. By Judy Barrett Litoff & David C. Smith |  Got Any Gum Chum?Gis in Wartime Britain, 1942-1945. By Helen D. Millgate |
 Rebel RoseLife of Rose O'Neal Greenhow, Confederate Spy. By Ishbell Ross |  Mrs. IkeMemories and Reflections on the Life of Mamie Eisenhower. By Susan Eisenhower |  A Woman Doctor's Civil WarThe Diary of Esther Hill Hawks (Women's Diaries and Letters of the South). By Gerald Schwartz |
 MILITARY BRATSLegacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress. By Mary Edwards Wertsch |  The Women's Army Corps |  Waiting WivesThe Story of Schilling Manor, Home Front to the Vietnam War. By Donna Moreau |
 Intimate Strategies of the Civil WarMilitary Commanders and Their Wives. By Carol K. Bleser & Lesley J. Gordon |  Texas SocietyDirectory of the National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution 1959. By Kelly McAdams SR. |  Beating the G.I. BluesThe Military Spouse's Guide to Living Well with Uncle Sam. By Bonnie Domrose Stone |
 Unsung HeroesCombat Nurses & Army Wives. By LaVada "Rue" Bishop Aquilina |  Stories UntoldOral Histories of Wives of Vietnam Servicemen. By Charlotte McDaniel PhD |  The American Military TraditionFrom Colonial Times to the Present. By John M. Carroll & Colin F. Baxter |
Dissertations & Theses
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Mayer, Holly A. Belonging to the Army: Camp Followers and the Military Community during the American Revolution. Dissertation, College of William & Mary (Arts & Sciences), 1990.
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Shearer-Shineman, Anne R. Building a Tradition: Army Wives in the American Revolution. Dissertation, University of Wyoming, 1984.
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Ward, Emma. Ladylike: The Necessity and Neglect of Camp Followers in the Continental Army. Thesis Project, Western Kentucky University, 2021.
Articles & Book Chapters
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Ailes, Mary. “Camp Followers, Sutlers, and Soldiers’ Wives: Women in Early Modern Armies (c. 1450–c. 1650).” In A Companion to Women’s Military History, 80–83. Leiden: Brill, 2012.
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Becker, Ann M. “Smallpox in Washington’s Army: Strategic Implications of the Disease During the American Revolutionary War.” Journal of Military History 68, no. 2 (April 2004).
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Garrett, Heather. “Camp Followers, Nurses, Soldiers, and Spies: Women and the Modern Memory of the Revolutionary War.” History in the Making 9, no. 5 (January 2016).
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Harvard University. “Enlightenment and Revolution.” The Pluralism Project, 2024.
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King, Martha J. “The ‘Pen of the Historian’: Mercy Otis Warren’s History of the American Revolution.” Princeton University Library Chronicle 72, no. 2 (2011): 513–—.
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Mattingly, Carol. “Elizabeth Fries Lummis Ellet (1818–1877).” Legacy: A Journal of American Women Writers 18, no. 1 (2001).
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Rees, John U. “‘The Multitude of Women …’: An Examination of the Numbers of Female Followers with the Continental Army.” Journal of the Brigade of the American Revolution 23, no. 4 (1992).
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Schuetze, Sarah. “Carrying Home the Enemy: Smallpox and Revolution in American Love and Letters, 1775–76.” Early American Literature 53, no. 1 (2018): 97–125.
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Shields, David S., and Fredrika J. Teute. “The Republican Court and the Historiography of a Women’s Domain in the Public Sphere.” Journal of the Early Republic 35, no. 2 (June 2015).
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Sklar, Kathryn Kish. “American Female Historians in Context, 1770–1930.” Professional and White-Collar Employments 3, no. 1/2 (December 31, 1993): 33–46.
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Sklar, Kathryn Kish. “Collection: Kathryn Kish Sklar Papers.” Smith College Finding Aids. Accessed March 16, 2024. https://findingaids.smith.edu/repositories/2/resources/1184.
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Taylor, Lew. “America’s Forgotten Patriot: Mercy Otis Warren and the Writings That Fanned the Flames of Revolution.” Saber and Scroll: Journal of the APUS Historical Studies Honor Society 9, no. 2 (2020).