No Place for Ladies: The Untold Story of Women in the Crimean War

Poignant and inspirational well researched yet thoroughly readable Simon Sebag Montefiore The Lady with the Lamp was not the only woman in the Crimea. Drawing on hundreds of unpublished accounts respected historian Helen Rappaport has created a rich and fascinating portrait of the many different women involved in the conflict. Four wives would be chosen to accompany each regiment enduring the vermin-ridden troop ships and then left to fend for themselves in the barren Crimean terrain before combing the battlefields in search of their men.At home vast numbers of women - including Queen Victoria herself - knitted socks to cheer the soldiers stranded outside freezing Sevastopol. Florence Nightingale had a band of unruly often hard-drinking female orderlies to control. Rejected by Nightingale maverick black nurse Mary Seacole set up her own dispensary in the Crimea.And then there were the lady battlefield tourists watching engagements from a safe distance in between picnics and yacht trips.