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Women have always followed the troops, but military laundresses were the first tobe carried on the rolls of the U.S. Army. They traveled and lived alongside thesoldiers during two of the most important conflicts in United States history: theCivil War and the war on the western frontier.A few laundresses made names for themselves. Laundresses who got writtenup in records, diaries, and newspapers were often involved in colorful or unfortunatecircumstances. No, they were not all loose women. Some were; however, mostwere simply brave, adventurous, and unorthodox women.They marched with the army for hundreds of miles, carrying their babies andtugging small children behind them. Among the first non-native women on lonelyfrontier outposts, they waited in frightened huddles in camps and forts for theirsoldier-husbands to return from dangerous campaigns.