Kate Clarke and Mrs. Owens are two examples of women affected by the Civil War homefront. The homefront is when the civilian population is affected by the war currently being fought for in that nation. When the men left their families to fight in the war, women had to take initiative for their husbands to keep up their homes and children. You'll find out that women did more at home than expected of them through the acts of Kate Clarke and Mary Owens. The Civil War changed the lives of every American family in the North and in the South. Almost every family had a husband, son, father or brother away at war, leaving the women and children at home with the chores. Women had to step outside their gender roles and take care of what’s most important to them, their homes and families. In the North, women took over factories that men would originally do, creating supplies, clothes and guns for the war. For the South, rich women had to take over their husbands and fathers plantations along with the controlling of the owned slaves. Less fortunate white women worked in the fields doing the agricultural work that the husbands and sons would normally do. The home front was a time of constant fear that their loved ones would never been seen again, leaving the responsibilities to the women and children. In "The Torture of Mary Owens," Mary is visited by Confederate soldiers on the whereabouts of her criminal husband Bill Owens, a runaway volunteer for the Confederacy. Mary lies to the soldiers, which they didn’t take lightly because the soldiers knew she was protecting her husband. The Confederate soldiers tortured Mrs. Owens by hanging her in a tree while her infant son watched till she revealed Bill Owens location. In the time of the Civil War, there were no restrictions of torturing civilians to require information on criminals, runaway slaves and in Bill Owens case, desertion of the Confederate army. Pain became the Confederacy’s new gain