During the Civil War, many women in Montgomery County tried to maintain normal life by keeping homes, caring for children, and taking on traditional male farm responsibilities while facing the hardships caused by absent family men, limited supplies, and labor shortages. Domestic skills such as cooking meals, mending clothes, and tending wounds became vital forms of volunteer service that comforted soldiers, as when Alice D. Nourse recalled local women in Seneca bringing delicacies to Union troops suffering from typhoid fever to make their illness more bearable. Women in the county held mixed views of the conflict and supported both Federal and southern causes; shortly after the firing at Fort Sumner, some women in Rockville showed support for the Confederacy by making a Southern flag that flew from the courthouse during a demonstration honoring Virginia secession in which Abraham Lincoln was burned in effigy. Whatever their loyalties, women endured severe hardships during the war years, often finding solace in religious belief, and when regular church attendance proved difficult, large revivals flourished, especially around Hyattstown. That religious excitement continued after the war, and in August 1865 Eleanor and David Zeigler prepared lodgings for nearly 300 people attending a revival held 400 yards from their home, the 1805 Zeigler house that still stands.