Civil War Women

Eliza Rhea Anderson Fain

noreply@blogger.com (Maggiemac) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:09:00 +0000

Civil War Civilian
Eliza Rhea Anderson Fain was born on August 1, 1816, to Elizabeth Rhea and Audley Anderson. Eliza's father died when she was two, leaving her mother with little alternative but to seek refuge for herself and her family with her brother. In 1832, Elizabeth married Nicholas Fain, and eighteen months later, Eliza Anderson married her step-brother, Richard Fain.

A merchant, banker, and president of the Rogersville and Jefferson Railroad, Richard was part of the emerging commercial-professional elite of East Tennessee. The couple owned a two-hundred-acre farm two miles east of Rogersville, where Eliza Fain raised thirteen children.

Eliza Fain kept a diary from age nineteen until nine days before her death at age seventy-five. She encouraged her children to follow the dictates of evangelical Protestantism and to be proud of their southern heritage. The Fains owned eight slaves, four of whom were under the age of twelve at the beginning of the Civil War.

A Religious War
In January 1861, when Eliza's husband and three sons enlisted in the army, donned their uniforms of gray, and headed off to defend the Confederacy. Richard Fain served as organizing colonel of the 63rd Tennessee Infantry
Regiment, which was stationed in Knoxville for much of 1862.

Eliza frequently visited the army camp, and she used this time with her family to impress upon them their Christian duty to defend and honor the South. A religious compass, she declared, would guide the soldier and the Confederacy to
victory.

"I am becoming more firmly fixed in my conviction concerning this war that religion will be more intimately interwoven in its history than any which had ever preceded it," she wrote on October 13, 1862. "The men who have honored God are the men he has chosen to honor on almost every field."

Unlike most elite white women, who rarely wrote in depth about slavery or its connection to the war effort, Eliza wrote extensively on the "moral plan" that southerners had for their slaves – and the northern quest to corrupt these noble endeavors.

She regarded the war as a religious battle between God-fearing southerners and an enemy who had abandoned God. "How little they [northerners] know of the deep anguish many of us feel in regard to our servants for their immortal souls," Eliza cried on June 2, 1861.

"And I do feel the judgments of Almighty God will rest upon the heads of the Northern people for their unjust interference, thereby thwarting our plans for the elevation of our colored people in a moral point of view." Slavery, Eliza Fain believed, was the cornerstone of the war effort – the very reason her kin had pledged to fight and die for the cause.

When a band of Federal soldiers passed her home in October 1863, she challenged them to reflect upon their motives to wage war. "They have to acknowledge that slavery has been the inciting cause to this war," she triumphantly declared.
"They all tell me if they thought they were fighting to free the Negro they would quit and go home."

The Bible as a Weapon
Unable to fight and die for her cause, Eliza used her Bible as a weapon against passing Federal troops. She gave religious tracts to raiding Yankee soldiers in the hope that the Lord would "impress the precious truth which they contain on the minds of those to whom given," thereby weakening the northern resolve to fight.

By 1863, Fain may have been forgiven for believing that God had abandoned her family and the Confederate war effort. In January, her ailing husband informed her that he would soon resign from his post and return home. The news made
Eliza anxious and depressed. "I do feel could he stand the service I do not want him to resign if he is useful to his country as I hope and believe he is," she wrote on January 23, 1863, but Richard resigned.

By June, Eliza received the news that her son, Nick, and nephew, Sam, had been captured by Federal troops and sent to Johnson's Island prison in Ohio. Unable to find out anything certain, she spent months in a "state of suspense" over her loved ones, while eking out a wartime existence replete with shortages and military uncertainty.

Rogersville was occupied by Confederate General James Longstreet's army until April 1864, and for the rest of the year the town lay on the border between the two armies, and was subject to raiding parties of violent guerillas. On more than one occasion, the ruthless bands left Eliza contemplating her "great want of provisions."

The Domestic Institution
Fain bore the loss of food and other goods with stoic heroism, but watched in disbelief at the demise of the domestic institution she had so staunchly defended. As her own slaves abandoned their posts for the safety of Union lines, Eliza
could not face the harsh reality that the "sacred relationship" binding master and slave may have been a one-sided affair.

Instead, she worried about the moral welfare of the "poor, infatuated Negroes," whom she believed had been falsely lured by northern promises of freedom. "He leaves a home of plenty and I may say peace and happiness," she wrote sadly. "He goes to them, they take the deluded victims and in most cases put them in squads of 20 or 30 with an overseer to work out a miserable existence ... with a tenfold severer infliction of punishment than he has ever known in his Southern home."

When one of Eliza's last house slaves left in April 1865, she lamented that the young girl had not informed her of her impending departure, as she would have "given her something for her journey." Eliza had no feelings of unkindness for
the "deluded girl," whom she believed had "started upon a life of trial such as she had never known before" and become the slave of a "more despotic power." Eliza conceded that perhaps the Lord had allowed the North to rule over her former servants in a grand plan to make them "more humble and better slaves."

A God of Truth
Eliza Fain bore defeat with the same Christian resignation. She cried bitter tears when her husband, Richard, took the oath of allegiance to the United States and applied for a pardon, which was granted by President Andrew Johnson in October 1865. In brief moments of despair, she questioned why "a God of truth, of love should permit such a people to overcome us."

As Confederate family and friends fled East Tennessee in the wake of Radical – and often violent – Republican rule, Eliza searched for meaning in a world turned upside down by war. She concluded that the Lord had "pour[ed] out his
wrath upon the South on account of the amalgamated race who have been born in a state of slavery."

Clinging to her Christian resolve, Eliza Fain faced a hard postwar life shaped by poverty. Three of Eliza's daughters died of consumption during the 1870s, and three sons left East Tennessee. Unable to sustain his family by farming, Richard worked as a clerk for his prosperous cousin, Sam Fain.

Eliza Fain never abandoned the southern cause, but instead resigned all things to the will of God. Her submission allowed her to negotiate her way through war and defeat without sacrificing her deeply held beliefs on race, class, and gender.

The Fain family relocated to Mossy Creek, Tennessee, in the late 1870s, where Richard died in 1878.

Eliza Rhea Anderson Fain died in 1892.

SOURCE
A Confederate Woman's Christian Interpretation of the Civil War and Defeat

Read the book:
John N. Fain, ed. Sanctified Trial: The Diary of Eliza Rhea Anderson Fain, a Confederate Woman in East Tennessee. Voices of the Civil War Series. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2004.

Frances Clalin Clayton

noreply@blogger.com (Maggiemac) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:50:00 +0000

Civil War Woman Soldier
Frances Louisa Clalin was born in Illinois, and later married Elmer Clayton, with whom she would have three children. They had a farm in Minnesota, and before the Civil War, Frances was a housewife. At the beginning of the Civil War, Frances Clayton disguised herself as a man and, using the pseudonym Jack Williams, enlisted in the Union Army with her husband during the fall of 1861. Despite living in the state of Minnesota, they enlisted in a Missouri regiment. Presumably, Frances enlisted to be with her husband.

Frances Clalin Clayton

It wasn't difficult for Frances to convincingly play the part of a man. She was tall and masculine, and had tan skin. Frances is known to have fought in the Battle of Fort Donelson in Tennessee, February 13, 1862, where the Union won after three days of fighting.

Elmer and Frances served side by side until the Battle of Stones River on December 31, 1862. Elmer was only a few feet in front of Frances when he was killed, but she didn't stop fighting. Frances was later wounded in the hip. Her true identify was found when she entered the hospital, and she was discharged January 2, 1863.

Frances was on a train home when it was attacked by guerrillas. She was robbed of her papers, and decided to re-enlist. To better conceal her sex, Frances took up all the manly vices. She learned to drink, smoke, chew, and swear, and was especially fond of cigars. She even gambled, and a fellow soldier declared that he had played poker with her on a number of occasions.

Once back in the army, Frances stood guard, went on picket duty, and fought in the field with the rest of her comrades. She was reported to be a good horseman and swordsman, and the way she carried herself in stride was soldierly, erect, and masculine. She was well trained and knew her duties well, and was a respected person who commanded attention in the way she acted.

After being discharged from the Union Army, Frances tried to get back to Minnesota, and then decided to collect the bounty owed her deceased husband and herself, as well as to get some of Elmer's belongings. She then went from Missouri to Minnesota, then to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and on to Quincy, Illinois.

There is no additional information about Frances Clalin Clayton, and the information that is available has become so jumbled that it is impossible to state with certainty what actually happened to her. But she obviously served in the Union Army at some point, and deserves to be acknowledged for her contribution to the war.

Octavia Bryant Stephens

noreply@blogger.com (Maggiemac) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 12:33:00 +0000

Octavia Bryant moved to Florida with her family from Boston in 1843. Seven years later, her father, Joseph Bryant, founded the small town of Welaka, near Palatka. Octavia, fourteen years of age, developed an attraction for a nearby farmer, Winston Stephens, who was twelve years older than she. To discourage the romance, Mr. Bryant sent Octavia to a Boston school, where she began keeping diaries.

The Battle of Olustee

Octavia returned to Florida at the age of eighteen, and married Winston Stephens on November 1, 1859. The Civil War split the Bryant and Stephens families more than they already were. Octavia's father, a Union sympathizer, sat out the war up north, while three of his sons fought in the Confederate Army.

Winston enlisted in the Confederate Army in October 1861, as Lieutenant of the St. John's Rangers. By 1862, the company was called "Captain Stephens' Independent Cavalry," and in December by special order the company became Company B, 2nd Florida Cavalry. Winston fought along the St. Johns River and across North Florida.

His letters home advised Olivia in the management of their farm, where slaves raised cotton, livestock, and crops. When Federal troops occupied north Florida, Octavia sold the 160-acre farm, and fled with her family to Thomasville, Georgia, some thirty miles north of Tallahassee.

Octavia Stephens to Winston Stephens March 2, 1862:

My dear Husband,
I have just laid our baby down to sleep, and now sit down to have a little chat with you. I rather think though that I will do all the chatting, if it can be called so, and it ought not, for how much pleasanter it would be to have you here so that we could talk in earnest, this way of sending questions and answers by letters is a slow business, but being able to write and read letters is a great blessing, yes letter writing was a great invention.

I don't know how I would do if I could not hear from you. You don't know how much I want to see you, the weeks are very long. I suppose when you come home you will be Captain, as I hear that you will most probably be elected to that office. The night that the men passed here with Captain Hopkins' body, four men stopped in the yard and got Jane to cook them some supper.

Union Invasion
General Quincy Gilmore, commander of the Union Department of the South, sent General Truman Seymour to Jacksonville, Florida, on February 7, 1864. Seymour's troops secured the town and began to send cavalry raiders inland to the towns of Lake City and Gainesville.

Loyalty Oaths
Just behind the troops came John Hay, private secretary to President Abraham Lincoln. Hay began issuing loyalty oaths to residents in an effort to form a new Republican state government in time to send delegates to the 1864 party convention. Under President Lincoln's plan of Reconstruction, a new state government could be formed when 10 percent of the state's prewar voting population had taken a loyalty oath.

The Battle of Olustee
General Truman Seymour began moving toward Lake City, west of Jacksonville, to destroy a railroad bridge and secure northern Florida for the Union. General Joseph Finegan had only 500 men at Lake City, but reinforcements were on the way. By the time the two sides began to skirmish near the railroad station at the small town of Olustee, each side had about 5,000 troops.

On February 20, 1864, Winston Stephens was with the Confederate forces at the small town of Olustee in northern Florida. Throughout that day, a fierce battle raged. The Confederates were close to breaking the Yankee lines when they ran low on ammunition. When more cartridges arrived, the attack continued. By late afternoon, Seymour realized the fight was lost, and the Yankees began to retreat.

In the largest Civil War battle fought in Florida, Confederate forces defeated the Union troops at Olustee, and the victory kept the Confederates in control of Florida's interior for the rest of the war. The Union suffered 1,800 killed, wounded, or captured – one of the highest casualty rates of the war for the Union. The Confederates lost about 900 men.

Winston Stephens to Octavia Stephens February, 21, 1864:

My own dear wife,
I am now writing with a Yankee pen, Yankee ink, and on Yankee Paper captured on the battlefield. We had one of the hottest contested battles of the war on yesterday, commencing about 2 o'clock PM and ending 1/2 past 5 PM, and during the whole time there was not a moments cessation in the fire.

Men never fought better than our men did, and God seemed to shield them in great measure from destruction as the loss on our side is comparatively light. We can't tell yet how much it is, but I think from all I can learn that 300 will cover dead and wounded and the enemy think that they have lost 1500 men killed and wounded.

I am so tired and dirty, I can hardly keep my eyes open to write. I went over the battleground this morning on my way to camp, and never in all my life have I seen such a distressing sight – some men with their legs carried off, others with their brains out, and mangled in every conceivable way, and then our men commenced stripping them of their clothing and left their bodies naked. (They needed the clothing.)

I never want to see another battle or go on the field after it is over. I have only received one letter from you in nearly three weeks. I do wish you would write. I can get a letter any day here as the cars come through. When you feel like writing do so and don't wait for me.

I must close. Give my love to Mother and the boys, kiss Dear Rosa and tell her Pa thought of her Ma often while under fire, and I feel thankful to God that he has been so merciful to me and mine. Goodbye, my darling, and may the Giver of Good continue to watch over us in mercy. I am as ever your devoted husband.
Winston

Winston Stephens, on Picket Near Camp Finegan February 27th, 1864:

My darling wife,
I know how anxious you are to hear from us, and I write every spare time. You will see by this that we are gradually closing upon the Yanks. We moved down from Baldwin yesterday. Our main force rests on the west side of the branch from your Uncle George's old place.

I don't know General Finegan's program, but I think if any Yankees sleep on the west side of Cedar Creek, it will be in their last sleep. Oh how I wish I could never see such a sight as I witnessed after the battle near Olustee Station, and then to think of the loved ones at home who have been left lonely in this life by the loss of a husband, son, or father, or some young lady whose love had been centered upon some dear one whose life is so suddenly cut off.

Those reflections are not sweet, and I'll not write of them. I think the General intends driving the enemy to their gun boats, and if he gets the force I learn is coming he will be able to do so. The sound drubbing we gave them before will prepare them to expect a second one when we meet. I don't suppose there has been a more decisive battle fought since the war commenced. We had about 4500 men in the fight and had 183 killed and 729 wounded. Some of our wounded have since died, some 20 I think.

The Yanks had, from the best information, 11,700 men. We have over 600 in our hands, and we buried over 500 of their dead and they carried off nearly or quite 2000 wounded, so their loss was not less than 3,000 men or 1/4 of their command. They did not stop running until they reached Camp Finegan.

If we had only pressed them after the fight, we could have captured the whole army. I hear that General Colquitt wanted to follow them, but General Finegan opposed. Colonel Hopkins told me that General Finegan ordered General Colquitt to fall back during the fight but Colquitt sent him word it was no time to fall back and told him to send him more men, which he did and we have one of the best victories recorded. I want Gen. Colquitt to have all the credit due him.

I am well but as near worn out as any man you ever saw, and so black that I am ashamed. I left Camp Cooper on the 6th and had on a dirty shirt and I have changed but once since that time. I have clean clothes in Lake City, but they had as well not be for the good they do, as I am kept so constantly going I can't get them, and we are not still long enough to wash one.

I hope God in his goodness will soon deliver us from this awful condition. Give love to Mother and boys and kind remembrance to all friends, give a kiss and love to dear Rosa and accept for yourself the love and devotion of a sincere and loving husband. Direct to Camp Finegan care of Colonel McCormick.
Winston Stephens

After Olustee, Union troops retreated to their fortifications around Jacksonville. Gradually, both sides withdrew the bulk of their men and the war in Florida reverted to a series of minor raids and skirmishes. The 2nd Florida Cavalry won fame for their series of small-scale victories over Union raiding parties in 1864 and 1865.

Exactly four years and four months after their wedding, Winston Stephens was killed in battle. Octavia Stephens was a widow at 22.

Octavia Stephens Diary March 15, 1864:
Near Thomasville, Georgia

With a sad heart I begin another journal. On Sunday, February 28, dear Mother was taken with a congestive chill. On Friday, March 4, Davis came with the news of the death of my dear, dear husband. He was killed in battle near Jacksonville on the first of March.

Mother grew worse and on Sunday, March 6, she was taken from us between 12 and 1 O'clock. She passed quietly away, (Typhoid pneumonia). At 7 p.m. I gave birth to a dear little boy, which although three or four weeks before the time, the Lord still spared to me.

Mother was buried on the 7th and Rosa was taken with fever, but recovered after two days... I have named my baby Winston, the sweet name of that dear lost one, my husband, almost my life. God grant that his son, whom he longed for, but was not spared to see, may be like him.

I now begin as it were a new life and I pray that the Lord will give me strength to bear up under this great affliction, and with His help and the example of those two dear ones now with Him, I may be enabled to do my duty in this life and be prepared when the Lord calls me to meet them in that better world, where there will be no parting and no more sorrow.

It would be three years before Octavia Stephens returned to north Florida, and rebuilt as best she could. She never remarried. She saved all of Winston's letters.

SOURCES
Battle of Olustee
Civil War in Florida
Florida in the Civil War
Civil War Home Front in Florida
Historical Traveler's Guide to Florida

Letitia Burwell

noreply@blogger.com (Maggiemac) — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 12:53:00 +0000

Civil War Civilian
Letitia M. Burwell was born on a plantation in Virginia and spent most of her life in the rural regions of that state. Her book, A Girl's life in Virginia Before the War (1895), records her memories of the antebellum South. Burwell's descriptions of life on the plantation are filled with pastoral scenes of a wealthy Virginia family engaged in the daily pleasures of their time.

Burwell recalls tales and stories passed down from neighbors and family members that she feels epitomize the quality of life in the South. She tells of social dances, food, the relationships that her family had with their slaves, and life among family members.

She also recounts housing conditions in other regions of Virginia. She defends the South against the criticisms by outside observers. Burwell also observes that in some ways life in the antebellum South, even for slaves, was better than life in many parts of England, France, and the rest of the world.

Her book contains an engrossing eyewitness account of antebellum plantation life as it really was. The author, whose family had been in Virginia for over a century, offers a lively description of the relations between master and slave in response to the lies published in the North before, during, and after the War concerning the treatment of slaves in the South.

Excerpt from A Girl's Life In Virginia Before The War, which illustrates how deluded some Southerners were:

Confined exclusively to a Virginia plantation during my earliest childhood, I believed the world one vast plantation bounded by Negro quarters. Rows of white cabins with gardens attached; Negro men in the fields; Negro women sewing, knitting, spinning, weaving, housekeeping in the cabins; with Negro children dancing, romping, singing, jumping, playing around the doors, - these formed the only pictures familiar to my childhood.

The master's residence - as the Negroes called it, "the great house" - occupied a central position and was handsome and attractive, the overseer's being a plainer house about a mile from this. Each cabin had as much pine furniture as the occupants desired, pine and oak being abundant, and carpenters always at work for the comfort of the plantation. Bread, meat, milk, vegetables, fruit, and fuel were as plentiful as water in the springs near the cabin doors.

Among the Negroes – one hundred – on our plantation, many had been taught different trades; and there were blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, millers, shoemakers, weavers, spinners, all working for themselves. No article of their handicraft ever being sold from the place, their industry resulted in nothing beyond feeding and clothing themselves.

My sister and myself, when very small children, were often carried to visit these cabins, on which occasions no young princesses could have received from admiring subjects more adulation. Presents were laid at our feet – not glittering gems, but eggs, chestnuts, popcorn, walnuts, melons, apples, sweet potatoes – all their "cupboards" afforded – with a generosity unbounded. This made us as happy as queens, and filled our hearts with kindness and gratitude to our dusky admirers.

Around the cabin doors the young Negroes would quarrel as to who should be his or her mistress, some claiming me, and others my sister. All were merry-hearted, and among them I never saw a discontented face. Their amusements were dancing to the music of the banjo, quilting parties, opossum-hunting, and sometimes weddings and parties.

Many could read, and in almost every cabin was a Bible. In one was a prayer-book, kept by one of the men, a preacher, from which he read the marriage ceremony at the weddings. This man opened a night school – charging twenty-five cents a week – hoping to create some literary thirst in the rising generation, whose members, however, preferred their nightly frolics to the school, so it had few patrons.

Our house servants were numerous, polite, and well trained. My mother selected those most obliging in disposition and quickest at learning, who were brought to the house at ten or twelve years of age, and instructed in the branches of household employment. These small servants were always dressed in the cleanest, whitest, long-sleeved aprons, with white or red turbans on their heads.

No establishment being considered complete without a multiplicity of these, they might be seen constantly darting about on errands from the house to the kitchen and the cabins, upstairs and downstairs, being, indeed, omnipresent and indispensable.

It was the custom for a lady visitor to be accompanied to her room at night by one of these black, smiling "indispensables," who insisted so good naturedly on performing all offices – combing her hair, pulling off her slippers, etc. – that one had not the heart to refuse, although it would have been sometimes more agreeable to be left alone.

The Negroes were generally pleased at the appearance of visitors, from whom they were accustomed to receive some present on arriving or departing; the neglect of this rite being regarded as a breach of politeness. The old Negroes were quite patriarchal, loved to talk about "old times," and exacted great respect from the young Negroes, and also from the younger members of the white family. We called the old men "Uncle," and the old women "Aunt," - these being terms of respect.

The atmosphere of our own home was one of consideration and kindness. The mere recital of a tale of suffering would make my sister and myself weep with sorrow. And I believe the maltreatment of one of our servants – we had never heard the word "slave" – would have distressed us beyond endurance.

We early learned that happiness consisted in dispensing it, and found no pleasure greater than saving our old dolls, toys, beads, bits of cake or candy, for the cabin children, whose delight at receiving them richly repaid us. If any of the older servants became displeased with us, we were miserable until we had restored the old smile by presenting some choice bit of sweetmeat to the offended one. At such establishments one easily acquired a habit of being waited upon, there being so many servants with so little to do.

The Negroes made pocket-money by selling their own vegetables, poultry, eggs, etc. – produced at the master's expense, of course. I often saw my mother take out her purse and pay them liberally for fowls, eggs, melons, sweet potatoes, brooms, shuck mats, and split baskets. The men made small crops of tobacco or potatoes for themselves on any piece of ground they chose to select.

Smiling faces always welcomed us home, as the carriage passed through the plantation, and on reaching the house we were received by the Negroes about the yard with the liveliest demonstrations of pleasure. It was a long time before it dawned upon my mind that there were places and people different from these. The plantations we visited seemed exactly like ours. The same hospitality was everywhere; the same kindliness existed between the white family and the blacks.

Letitia Burwell died in December 1905 at age 75.

SOURCE
Documenting the American South

Lucy Gaylord Pomeroy

noreply@blogger.com (Maggiemac) — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:13:00 +0000

Civil War Nurse
In 1803, some families from Bristol and Meriden, Connecticut, moved to the wilderness of New York, and settled in what is now Otisco, Onondaga County. Among these were Chauncey Gaylord, a sturdy, athletic young man, just arrived at the age of twenty-one, and "a little, quiet, black-eyed girl, with a sunny, thoughtful face, only eleven years old." Her name was Dema Cowles.

So the young man and the little girl became acquaintances, and friends, and in after years lovers. In 1817 they were married. Their first home was of logs, containing one room, with a rude loft above, and an excavation beneath for a cellar.

In this humble abode was born Lucy Ann Gaylord, who afterwards became the wife of Samuel C. Pomeroy, United States Senator from Kansas. Mrs. Gaylord was a woman of remarkable strength of character and principles, one who carried her religion into her daily life, and taught by a consistent example.

Lucy's mother had early been widowed, and had afterwards married Eliakim Clark from Massachusetts, and had become the mother of the well-known twin brothers, Lewis Gaylord, and Willis Gaylord Clark, destined to develop into scholars and poets, and to leave their mark upon the literature of America.

Lucy, and as the elder sister, shared in their primitive mode of life, and in her mother's cares and duties. Her character developed and expanded, and she grew in mental grace as in stature, loving all beautiful things and noble thoughts, and early making a profession of religion.

By this time, the family occupied a handsome rural homestead, where neatness, order, industry, and kindness reigned, and where a liberal hospitality was always practiced. Here gathered all the large group of family relatives, and here the aged grandmother Clark lived.

The most beautiful scenery surrounded this homestead. Peace, order, intelligence, truth, and godliness abounded there, and amidst such influences Lucy Gaylord had the training that led to the future usefulness of her life. Even in her youth, she was the friend and safe counsellor of her brothers.

At eighteen, Lucy dedicated herself to missionary work. To this end she labored and studied for several years, steadfastly educating herself for a vocation she believed was her calling, though often afflicted with serious doubts as to whether she could leave her parents.

One violent illness after another destroyed Lucy's health, and she never quite recovered the early tone of her system. Yet she worked on, doing good wherever possible. Soon afterwards she met with the great sorrow of her life. The young man to whom she was soon to be married, to whom she had a very strong attachment, died suddenly. By degrees the sharpness of her grief wore away, and it became a sweet, though sad memory.

Eight years later, Lucy married Samuel C. Pomeroy of Southampton, Massachusetts. He had given up mercantile business in Western New York not long before, and had returned to his childhood home to care for his aged parents. Lucy was welcomed heartily, and she took on the duties of caring for Samuel's parents.

Here, as elsewhere, Lucy made herself useful beyond, as well as within, her home. She performed duties of Sabbath School teacher and general religious instruction, that might be called arduous, especially when added to her domestic cares and occupations.

All these labors eventually exhausted Lucy's strength, and a protracted illness followed. From 1850, for five or six years, she continued to suffer, being most of the time very ill. During all this time, however, she never lost her faith and courage, even when her physicians gave no hope of her recovery, being convinced that if God had any work for her to do, He would spare her life.

During this time her husband was often absent, being first in the Massachusetts Legislature, and later an agent of the Northeastern Aid Society of Kansas, which they wanted to settle as a free State. During his absence, she experienced other afflictions, but her health finally improved, and as soon as possible she made preparations to go to Kansas, where Mr. Pomeroy wanted to make a home.

In the spring of 1857, Lucy finally arrived there. The hardships and the usefulness of her life in Kansas are matters of history, and it is surprising that one so long an invalid was enabled to perform such exhausting labors. All who knew her there, bore enthusiastic testimony to the usefulness of her life.

To the whites, Lucy was friend, hostess, counsellor, assistant, in sickness and in health. To the poor and despised blacks, striving to find freedom, she was friend and teacher, even at a time when – with the slave state of Missouri so nearby – that service was most dangerous.

Then followed the terrible famine year of 1860. During all that time, Lucy freely gave her services in the work of providing for the sufferers. Mr. Pomeroy, aided by the knowledge he had acquired in his experience as Agent of Emigration, was able to obtain supplies from the East, and Mrs. Pomeroy transformed her home into an office of distribution, of which she was superintendent and chief clerk. It was a year that taxed her strength far too heavily.

Lucy accompanied her husband to Washington in the spring of 1861 to take his seat in the United States Senate. There, her health failed again. Cough and hoarseness constantly troubled her, and at times she was obliged to leave for visits in her native air, and for a stay of some months at the Geneva Water Cure.

From the very beginning of the Civil War, Lucy Pomeroy proved herself desirous of the welfare of our soldiers. The record of her deeds of kindness is not as ample as that of some others, because her poor health forbade active nursing and visiting the hospitals, which is the most public part of the work.

Lucy went home to Kansas in the autumn of 1862, and spent some months there. There was at that time a regiment in camp at Atchison, and she was able to do great good to the sick in the hospital – not only with supplies, but by her own personal efforts for their physical and spiritual welfare.

On her return to Washington, Lucy entered as actively as possible into caring for the soldiers. Her form became known in the hospitals, and many a suffering man hailed her coming with a new light kindling in his dimmed eyes. She brought them comforts and delicacies, and added her prayers. She cared both for souls and bodies, and earned the immortal gratitude of those to whom she ministered.

In January, 1863, Lucy's last active benevolent work began – the foundation of an asylum at Washington for the freed orphans and destitute aged African American women whom the war, and the Proclamation of Emancipation, had thrown upon the care of the benevolent. A charter was immediately obtained, and when the Association was organized, Mrs. Pomeroy was chosen President.

Almost entirely by her exertions, a building for the Asylum was obtained, as well as some condemned hospital furniture, which was to be sold at auction by the Government, but was instead transferred to the Asylum. But when the time came, on June 1, 1863, for the Association to be put in possession of the buildings and grounds assigned them, Mrs. Pomeroy was too ill to receive the keys, and the Secretary took her place. She was never able to look upon the fruit of her labors.

Again, Lucy had exhausted her feeble powers, and she was never more to rally. A slow fever followed, which at last assumed the form of typhoid. She lingered on, slightly better at times, until July 17, when preparations were completed for removing her to the Geneva Water Cure, and she started upon her last journey.

She went by water, and arrived at New York very comfortably, leaving there on a boat for Albany, on the morning of the July 20. But death overtook her before even this portion of the journey was finished.

Lucy Gaylord Pomeroy died on the afternoon of July 20, 1863.

SOURCE
Woman's Work in the Civil War

Judith Carter Henry

noreply@blogger.com (Maggiemac) — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 19:06:00 +0000

At first, Americans viewed the American Civil War romantically, as a great adventure. To many, it was a crusade of sorts that would be decided quickly, and would return both the North and South to a peaceful way of life, either as one nation or two. But events near the small Virginia community of Manassas Junction would change all that.

Drawing of Henry House after First Battle of Manassas

The importance of the First Battle of Bull Run, or Manassas as it was generally known in the South, lay not so much in the movement of the armies or the strategic territory gained or lost, but shocked the nation into the realization that the war might prove longer and more costly than anyone could have imagined – not only to the armies, but to the nation as a whole.

On July 21, 1861, the first major confrontation of the opposing armies took place here, coming to a climax on the fallow fields of the widow Judith Henry's family, and claiming almost 5,000 casualties. Among the victims were not only the dead and wounded of the opposing armies, but members of the civilian population, and, ultimately, the wide-eyed innocence of a nation that suddenly realized it had gone to war with itself.

The two armies converged and on July 21 a heavy battle took place starting at 5:30 a.m. The Union was winning when fresh Confederate reinforcements arrived by train and pushed the Union line back into what was called the Great Skedaddle.

One person who gained fame from this battle was Thomas Jonathon Jackson who stood firm on his horse on Henry House Hill during a raging battle. Two Confederate generals, Barnard Bee and Francis S. Bartow rallied their troops when Bee exclaimed, "There is Jackson standing like a stone wall: Rally behind the Virginians!"

As the battle started, townsfolk came by carriage, horseback, or walked to an area overlooking the battle field. There they spread blankets and brought picnic lunches to watch the war. What they saw was a brutal battle. Some of the fiercest fighting took place on Henry House Hill.

First Civilian Casualty of the Civil War
On Sunday, July 21, Judith Carter Henry, her daughter Ellen, and hired colored girl, Lucy Griffith, were living at Spring Hill Farm with her son Hugh coming and going frequently to look after them. Hugh had established a school for boys in Alexandria, and had special pupils even in the summer. He wasn't there that day, but John – another of Mrs. Henry's sons – who had ridden down from Loudoun just to spend the day, was there.

When the battle began on the opposite hill, artillery shots were coming threateningly near. The family first considered trying to move Mrs. Henry, 85 years old and bedridden, to Portici, the home of Robert Lewis, one mile southeast of the Henry home. But in the growing confusion, that was out of the question.

There was a springhouse to the southwest in a depression that seemed less exposed. They carried her there, only to have her beg to be taken back to her own bed. This was done as soon as they realized that the spring house was no safer than the dwelling.

While the Henrys were gone, Union and Confederate soldiers entered the hall in front of the two downstairs rooms. Confederate snipers had taken up hiding positions in the home. A Union soldier was shot in that hallway by a Confederate, who fell almost at Ellen Henry's feet.

When Union Captain James Ricketts' artillery shelled the house to drive out the Confederate sharpshooters, the bed on which Judith Henry lay was shattered. She was thrown to the floor, wounded in the neck and side, and one of her feet was partially blown off. She died later in the afternoon, and was buried in the garden she loved.

Ellen Henry sought refuge in the big fireplace chimney during the bombardment, and her subsequent deafness was attributed to injury to her eardrums from the violent concussion produced by the shelling. Whether John was in the house during the shelling or not was never stated, but since he was unhurt, it is presumed that he was outside when the bombarding began.

SOURCES
First Battle of Bull Run
The Jackson County Banner
First Battle of Manassas: An End to Innocence
The Death of Judith Carter Henry – PDF FILE

Fannie Lawrence Ricketts

noreply@blogger.com (Maggiemac) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 17:32:00 +0000

Civil War Nurse
Fanny Lawrence was the daughter of an Englishman of wealth, J. Sharpe Lawrence, who owned large estates on the Island of Jamaica. Her parents were married at Elizabeth, New Jersey, and after some years of migra¬tory life between England and the West Indies, decided to remain. There their third daughter Fanny was born.

Fanny and James Ricketts

In January, 1856, Miss Fanny Lawrence was married to a distant relative on her mother's side, James B. Ricketts, then a captain in the First Artillery, U. S. Army. James was a career soldier who held the rank of captain. He was a graduate of West Point, and fought in both the Mexican and Seminole Wars and served in various garrisons.

Immediately after the wedding, Fanny went with him to the southwestern frontier on the Rio Grande, where his company was stationed. When in camp, Mrs. Ricketts greatly endeared herself to the men in her husband's company by constant acts of kindness to the sick, and by showing a cheerful and lively disposition amid all the hardships and annoyances of garrison life at such a distance from home.

The Civil War
At the beginning of the Civil War, the First Artillery was ordered to report to Fortress Monroe in Virginia, where Fanny's husband trained the new recruits in artillery. James served in the defenses of Washington, DC, and commanded an artillery battery in the capture of Confederate-held Alexandria, Virginia, in early 1861. His battery was then attached to William B. Franklin's Brigade of Samuel Heintzelman's Division.

First Battle of Bull Run
James Ricketts was shot four times and captured at the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21, 1861, when his battery was overrun by Confederate infantry. For his personal bravery in the face of overwhelming odds, Ricketts was promoted to the rank of brigadier general of U.S. volunteers.

Fanny Ricketts was in the vicinity of the capital during the First Battle of Bull Run. When her husband didn't return with the rest of his unit, she was able to obtain a pass to go through the Union lines directly to the site of the conflict. She set out alone from their home in Washington DC, determined to find her husband.

When she encountered a Confederate outpost, her pass was worthless, and she feared she may have to turn back.
Fanny remembered her husband had a friendship with J.E.B. Stuart before the war, and she was able to contact him at Fairfax Court House. Now a professional soldier wearing the uniform of a Confederate colonel, Stuart gave Fanny a pass allowing her passage to the battlefield.

After four days of searchin, Fanny found her husband in a makeshift hospital, and from there accompanied him as a prisoner to Richmond, and went into captivity with him. There she stayed, made friends with the prison guards to gain visiting privileges, and saw her husband almost daily.

An excerpt from Fanny Ricketts' diary:

July 26:
No words can describe the horrors around me. Two men dead and covered with blood were carried down the stairs as I waited to let them pass. On a table in the open hall, a man was undergoing amputation of the leg. At the foot of the stairs two bloody legs lay, and through it all I went to my husband. Outside the next door was a severed arm, and my clothes brushed by blood, cloths, splint, etc. I found my dear husband lying on a hospital stretcher, still covered with blood! Downstairs, there are some forty men in the various stages of death or possible recovery. Blood runs on the floors, the smell is dreadful but no language can describe it.

July 27:
Dear James passed a restless night, his knee is much inflamed. Oh God, grant my darling husband be spared his leg. I was awake all night, the groans of the dying sounding in my ears. As I look from the window I see a severed leg under a tree. It has been there all day, and I intend asking to have it removed.

It required all of Fanny's courage to endure the hardships, privations, and cruelties to which the Union women were subjected, and while caring for her husband during the long weeks when his life hung upon a slender thread, she became also a minister of mercy to the numerous Union prisoners, who had not a wife's tender care.

When removed to Richmond, Captain Ricketts was still in great peril, and grew rapidly worse. For many weeks he was unconscious, and his death seemed inevitable. At length, four months after receiving his wounds, he began very slowly to improve. James was exchanged in the latter part of December, 1861, having partially recovered from his wounds.

He was commissioned Brigadier General in March, 1862, and assigned to command a brigade in McDowell's Corps at Fredericksburg. He was next assigned to command of a division in Irvin McDowell's corps, which he commanded at the Battle of Cedar Mountain, where he covered Nathaniel P. Banks' withdrawal.

At the Second Battle of Bull Run, James Ricketts' division was thrown forward into Thoroughfare Gap to bar the advance of Confederate General James Longstreet, who was trying to unite his wing of the Confederate Army with that of Stonewall Jackson. Ricketts, who was being flanked and in danger of being cut off, withdrew.

At the subsequent Battle of Antietam, James had two horses killed under him. He was badly injured when the second one fell on him. but not as severely as before. After two or three months' confinement with Fanny's loving care, he was in Washington, serving as President of a Military Commission, by the winter of 1862-63.

In the spring and summer of 1863, General Ricketts took part in the battles of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, and escaped personal injury, but his wife in gratitude for his preservation, ministered to the wounded, and for months continued her labors of love among them.

James didn't return to the field until March 1864, when he was assigned to a division of John Sedgwick's VI Corps, which he led through Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign in Virginia. The division performed poorly at the Battle of the Wilderness and the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. However, Ricketts received a promotion for "gallant and meritorious service" at the Battle of Cold Harbor on June 3 1864, where he and his men fought bravely.

In July 1864, James' command, numbering only 3350 men, was hurried north to oppose Jubal Early's attack on Washington, DC. He fought at the Battle of Monocacy, suffering the heaviest losses while holding the Union left flank.

Ricketts was engaged in Philip Sheridan's Shenandoah Valley Campaign. At the Battle of Cedar Creek, he commanded the VI Corps in the initial hours of the fighting, but was wounded by a Minié ball through his chest, and it was thought mortally wounded. Again for four months, Fanny watched patiently and tenderly over him until his recovery.

On March 13 1865, Ricketts was promoted to Major General, United States Army. In the closing scenes of the war, that culminated in Lee's surrender, General Ricketts was once more in the field, and though suffering from his wounds, he didn't leave his command until the war was virtually concluded.

His heroic wife Fanny remained at Union headquarters, watchful lest her husband should again be smitten down, but she was mercifully spared that added sorrow, and her husband was permitted to retire from the active ranks of the army, covered with scars honorably won.

In late July 1865, Ricketts was assigned to the command of a district in the Department of Virginia, a post he held until April 1866, when he was mustered out of the volunteer service. He was promoted again in July 1866, but declined the post. He retired from active service on January 3, 1867, and served on various courts-martial until January 1869.

Never in good health due to the chest wound he suffered in the Shenandoah Valley, James Ricketts lived with his wife in Washington, DC, for the rest of his life. He died there on September 27, 1887, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, along with Fanny, who died on December 13, 1900.

SOURCES
James B. Ricketts
Women in the Civil War
Women on the Battlefield
A Woman's Work in the Civil War
Union Brigadier General James B. Ricketts

The Nancy Harts

noreply@blogger.com (Maggiemac) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 14:09:00 +0000

Near the beginning of the Civil War, almost all of the men of LaGrange, Georgia, enlisted in the Confederate Army, leaving the small town unprotected. Two upper-class ladies and some graduates of the LaGrange Female College decided that they should gather the women and form a female militia to help protect their community. They called themselves the Nancy Harts in honor of Georgia's Revolutionary War heroine, who single-handedly defended her home against a group of invading British soldiers.

Nancy Colquitt Hill Morgan had been married for only 6 months, and was only 21 years of age, when her husband left for war. Mary Cade Alford Heard, only 27 when her husband left, had the leader knack as well. Left in charge of her and her in-laws plantations, she managed more than 100 slaves.

Lady Soldiers
The ladies of LaGrange formed a female militia to help protect their town. They held their first meeting at the nearby school house in May of 1861. They called on all available women to come and bring any guns or pistols they could find.

Forty women responded to the call, meeting to organize at an old red schoolhouse. Nancy Morgan was elected captain; Andelia Bull, Mary Heard and Aley Smith lieutenants; Augusta Hill and M.E. Colquitt sergeants; Sally Bull, Leila Pullen and Caroline Poythress corporals; and Ella Key treasurer.

Although a few other Southern cities armed women briefly in response to local crises, LaGrange's women are considered unique, because their group would become a well-organized, disciplined, commissioned military company that would train regularly for almost three years.

Dr. Augustus Ware agreed to help the ladies drill, because he was too debilitated to enlist in the army. Clothed in their regular attire of day dresses, some in hoops, and their hats, they drilled two days a week. Some evenings the ladies would drill, followed by loud and boisterous marching through town to keep the townspeople aware of their presence. By the end of the war the women had become sharpshooters and expert markswomen.

Halfway through the war, LaGrange became a hospital town. Because a major railroad line connected this ostensibly safe area to the battlefields in Virginia, Tennessee, and Mississippi, every train passing through delivered wounded and dying soldiers. Each of the Nancy Harts did regular hospital duty in addition to attending to her militia and family responsibilities.

The autumn of 1864 brought to Georgia the shocking realization that the South was losing the war. After a valiant defense, Atlanta fell. Sherman then burned and looted his way to Savannah. One of his cavalry units came within 30 miles northeast of LaGrange to the city of Newnan, but it was soundly defeated there by Major General Joseph Wheeler's cavalry.

Confederate General Robert E. Lee had surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, effectively ending the Civil War. But 13,000 Union troops under Brigadier General James Wilson of the Union Military Division of the Mississippi, better known as Wilson's Raiders, were still striking at targets in Alabama and Georgia.

On April 16, 1865, the LaGrange telegraph operator received an urgent request from Confederate Brigadier General Robert Tyler in nearby West Point. Federal troops were approaching the fort that guarded the railroad bridge, and he needed all able-bodied men to report immediately to help defend West Point. All the walking wounded and aged men in LaGrange gathered and rode a train to the fort. The defense of the West Point fort was gallant, but the 300 defenders couldn't hold out long against the Union's 3,000 attackers

The defeat was troubling news for the Nancy Harts. Many had had family and loved ones at the fort. Then, retreating Confederate cavalrymen brought news that a Federal column was coming up the road from West Point, and the Nancies were alerted.

Defending Home and Hearth
On April 17, 1865, a column of Union cavalry was reported to be approaching LaGrange from the west. This unit of Wilson's cavalry corps was commanded by Colonel Oscar LaGrange. The previous day they had crossed the Chattahoochee River at West Point (18 miles away), captured Fort Tyler, a strong redoubt commanding the town, and destroyed the bridges, the rail facilities, 19 locomotives, 340 cars loaded with army supplies, and much valuable machinery.

The Nancy Harts quickly assembled at the home of Mary Heard. As they were forming their ranks, several Confederate cavalrymen pleaded with them to return home and lock their doors. They refused and started marching to meet the column. When they came within a few hundred yards, Lt. Nancy Morgan marched out to meet the leader, Colonel LaGrange. Nancy informed him that the women were determined to defend their families and homes.

That night, despite all precautions, the Federal troops torched the local tannery, cotton warehouses, the train depot, and some buildings around the town square, and looted stores. But LaGrange's homes were spared, including Bellevue, the home of Confederate politician and former U.S. Senator Benjamin Harvey Hill – though it was routine practice to jail high-ranking Confederate officials and destroy or confiscate their property.

Apparently Oscar LaGrange was returning a favor. In the spring of 1864, he had been seriously wounded and captured by Confederate troops. Since Confederate hospitals were overwhelmed in the LaGrange area, he was placed under the care of a local woman, who was Senator Hill's niece. LaGrange recovered from his wounds, was exchanged in the autumn and returned to duty to later repay the kind gesture that had been accorded him.

The following morning, Colonel LaGrange marched on toward Macon, leaving behind this gracious Georgia town whose name he chanced to bear. Teary-eyed women bade farewell to their husbands and sons who had been taken as prisoners of war. But upon reaching Macon, LaGrange learned of General Lee's surrender and immediately freed his prisoners.

SOURCES
Battle of West Point
Battle of West Point: The Nancy Harts
LaGrange's All-Female Civil War Militia
Female Company Defends Town Against Raiders

Belle Boyd

noreply@blogger.com (Maggiemac) — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 12:29:00 +0000

Confederate Spy
Belle Boyd was born Maria Isabelle Boyd in Martinsburg, Virginia (now West Virginia), on May 9, 1844. Her father, a hotelier and storekeeper, was prosperous enough to send his spirited daughter to Mount Washington Female College in Baltimore, where she studied from 1856 to 1860. She learned to speak French fluently and became thoroughly conversant with classical literature, but she was more interested in horses and could ride well.

Belle Boyd

Belle was formally presented to Washington DC society just before the Civil War. Returning to Martinsburg, she took part in fund raising events, and made no secret of her support for the Confederacy.

Belle had her first experience of very real danger in July 1861, when General Robert Patterson's Pennsylvania Volunteers occupied Martinsburg. The Boyds defiantly displayed the flag of the Confederacy, which annoyed a Yankee soldier, who then forced his way into their home.

In the course of a heated argument, the man shoved Mrs. Boyd out of his way, and Belle shot him dead with a pistol. Belle could have been tried for murder before a military tribunal, but General Patterson ruled that the girl was only protecting her mother. Nevertheless, Belle moved to Front Royal until tempers cooled.

One evening in May 1862, Union General James Shields and other officers gathered in the parlor of a local hotel. Belle hid upstairs, listening through a knothole in the floor. She learned that Shields had been ordered east, a move that would reduce the Union Army's strength at Front Royal. That night, Belle rode through Union lines and reported the news to a Confederate scout, then returned to town.

When the Confederates advanced on Front Royal on May 23, Belle ran to greet General Stonewall Jackson's men, braving enemy fire that put bullet holes in her skirt. She urged an officer to inform Jackson that "the Yankee force is very small. Tell him to charge right down and he will catch them all."

Jackson changed his battle plans, tricked the Union commander, and won a decisive victory at Front Royal. That evening, Jackson penned a note of gratitude to her: "I thank you, for myself and for the army, for the immense service that you have rendered your country today."

Belle was a careless spy, and some Union officers decided to put a halt to her activities. On July 29, 1962, she was arrested and taken to a military prison in Baltimore, where she managed to charm General John A. Dix, who arranged for her to be included in the next prisoner exchange. Belle went right back to Front Royal and her espionage.

On March 17, 1863, Lt. Colonel John Pelham, commanding the Horse Artillery, Cavalry Division, of General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, was struck by a shell fragment at Kelly's Ford, dying shortly after at Culpeper. Among the 25-year-old's personal effects was a Bible in which Belle Boyd had written: "I know that thou art loved by another now. I know thou will never be mine."

Clearly learning nothing from her incarceration, Belle was arrested again in Martinsburg on August 1, 1863. This time she was sent to the Carroll Prison annex of the Old Capitol. She almost died of typhoid fever, which won her widespread sympathy. The Union solution was to banish their troublesome prisoner, and she was freed on December 1, 1863.

In Richmond, President Davis gave Belle important letters to take to England. In May 1864, she left aboard the Greyhound, a blockade runner, to sail for England. The blockade runner was halted by the USS Connecticut, to which she was transferred. Ensign Samuel H. Harding was charged with conveying her to Boston, but Harding fell in love with Belle and took her to Canada instead. The young couple then sailed to London, where they were married on August 24, 1864.

When Harding returned to the United States, he was arrested and imprisoned for treason for aiding in Boyd's escape. He was released but his health was ruined, and he soon died.

While in England, Belle embarked on a stage acting career, but only small parts came her way. It may have been at this time that she wrote her racy and unreliable account of her life as a spy, Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison.

Belle returned to the United States in 1869, and toured as an actress. On March 17, 1869, she retired from the stage to marry John Swainston Hammond. They moved to California, where she suffered a mental collapse and gave birth to a son in a Stockton insane asylum.

At Mount Hope, near Baltimore, Maryland, she was treated, recovered, and was discharged in 1870. She had three more children with Hammond, a traveling salesman, and the family moved to various cities around the country before settling in Dallas in 1883. The marriage was dissolved on November 1, 1884.

Two months later, Belle married twenty-four-year-old Nathaniel Rue High of Toledo, Ohio, a stock-company actor. In 1886, they moved to Ohio, and in order to support her family Belle returned to the stage, with High as her business manager. She debuted in Toledo on February 22, 1886, with a dramatic narrative of her own exploits as a Confederate spy. Until her death, she toured the country, performing her show in a Confederate uniform and cavalry-style hat.

Belle Boyd Harding Hammond High died at the Hile House in Kilbourn, Wisconsin on June 10, 1900, where she had scheduled a reading at the local post of the Grand Army of the Republic. She was broke, having sent her last $2 to her daughter, apologizing for the small amount: "I have been able to play only one night, so I am sending you all I have over expenses, $2."

Union veterans paid for Belle's funeral, and six of them served as her pallbearers. She was buried at Spring Grove Cemetery in Kilbourn. Her fashionable house on Pocahontas Street in Dallas, which she sold on July 29, 1887, was razed in 1963.

Belle Boyd might have been an accomplished spy, but at this point it is impossible to separate reality from romantic legend. How much information she passed to Confederate Generals Beauregard, Stonewall Jackson, and J.E.B. Stuart, if any, will never be known.

SOURCES
Belle Boyd
A Useful Spy?
The Beautiful Rebel Spy from Virginia

Lucy Rebecca Buck

noreply@blogger.com (Maggiemac) — Mon, 26 May 2008 11:53:00 +0000

Lucy Rebecca Buck, a Civil War diarist, was born on September 25, 1842, in Warren County, Virginia, the third of thirteen children. She learned the social graces at two local schools. Lucy was 18 years old when the Civil War began, and she lived with her family in Front Royal, Virginia, throughout the war.

Bel Air was the ancestral home of Lucy's parents, William and Elizabeth Buck. William was a merchant and a leading citizen of Front Royal. His great grandfather was one of the first settlers in that part of the Shenandoah Valley. Bel Air is located on an elevation a quarter mile east of town. The front of the house faces southward toward the town and beyond it the beautiful panorama of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Bel Air: Home of Lucy Rebecca Buck
As taken from a sketch made in 1860
From her diary, Sad Earth, Sweet Heaven
Bel Air was built in 1795 by Captain Thomas Buck.

Lucy's life was centered around the domestic routines of a large household. Her daily life was comprised of reading, sewing, visiting, and tutoring her younger brothers. Numerous friends and relatives were received regularly at Bel Air.

Lucy kept a diary of the events she witnessed from December 1861 to April 1865. Her diary entries describe daily life at Bel Air with an extended family that included parents, a grandmother, aunts, cousins, younger siblings, and visitors.

Two of her brothers, Alvin and Irving, were serving with the Confederate army. On Christmas morning, 1861, Lucy wrote:

I cannot but feel a little sad this morning for my thoughts continually revert to those dear absent brothers who were wont to share our Christmas cheer and gladden the hours of this festive season for us. When I think of the unexpected changes that have occurred in the last year, I feel as if I could not count upon ever having them with us again as of yore with any degree of certainty.

As the war moved closer to Front Royal, Lucy and her family were exposed to menacing raids by Northern troops. Her writings indicate that she was challenged to maintain the everyday pattern of family life during that difficult period. In January 1861, Lucy details the occupation of Front Royal by the Union army under the command of General Nathan Kimball. General Kimball established his headquarters at Bel Air, and his troops were quartered in the meadows surrounding the house.

In the spring of 1862, Union forces under Colonel John Kenly occupied Front Royal. In mid-May, southern spy Belle Boyd overheard Union officers discussing plans to remove all but about a thousand Union troops for other assignments.

Front Royal was located in a strategic area of the Shenandoah Valley, and control of the town changed frequently throughout the war. The area's strategic location, its abundant agriculture, and key rail line were recognized by General Thomas (Stonewall) Jackson as a key to the success of his planned Valley Campaign.

General Banks, commander of Union troops in the Shenandoah Valley, was laying in wait in nearby Strasburg for Jackson's army to advance from Harrisonburg via The Valley Pike. Jackson, acting on Miss Boyd's information, led his twelve-mile column over New Market Gap, some thirty miles south of Strasburg, and down through the valley to Front Royal.

Jackson literally caught the Union forces sleeping. The ensuing battle resulted in the defeat of Colonel Kenly's force and the outflanking of Banks as Jackson proceeded toward Winchester and the capture of many needed supplies.

The most significant change in the family's routine occurred in the middle of 1863:

Ma told me that the servants (household slaves) had all left in the night and carried our three horses with them. Laura and I went to milk the cows while Ma, Grandma, and Nellie cleaned the house, got the breakfast, and dressed the children.

Lucy and her sisters suddenly had to deal with household chores for the first time, but servants from neighboring households came to help them through the ordeal.

Lucy and General Lee
On July 22, 1863, as the Army of Northern Virginia marched through Front Royal on its retreat from Gettysburg, Lucy's father, William Buck, met General Robert E. Lee and his staff at the pontoon bridges over the Shenandoah River, and invited them to Bel Air for refreshment. General Lee accepted the invitation.

Lucy Buck wrote in her diary how the officers arrived to "stretch their cramped limbs and drink fresh buttermilk. I shall never forget the grand old chief as he stood on the porch surrounded by his officers; a tall commanding figure clad in dusty travel-stained gray but with a courtly dignified bearing." Lucy and her sister, at Lee's request, played and sang Southern songs while he stood by the piano.

After the war, when Lee was president of Washington College in Lexington, Lucy wrote to request a personal memento, he responded with a kind note enclosing a uniform button that he said had "accompanied him in all his Virginia campaigns." the note and the button are on display at the Warren Rifles Confederate Museum on Chester Street.

The End
In spite of the hotly contested actions going on literally in their front yard the loss of their slaves, Lucy and her family emerged from the war virtually unscathed. From her diary, we learn the titles of all the popular novels Lucy read during the period and all the parlor games the young people played for an evening's entertainment. Sometimes the guests in the family parlor wore blue – on those occasions Lucy sulked in her room.

Lucy Rebecca Buck, fervent supporter of the Confederacy that she was, was grieved by the final defeat of the Southern army in 1865.

Lucy Rebecca Buck died on August 20, 1918, and was buried at Prospect Hill Cemetery in Front Royal. Her Civil War diary was published as Sad Earth, Sweet Heaven in 1973.

Melcenia Elliott

noreply@blogger.com (Maggiemac) — Tue, 20 May 2008 18:50:00 +0000

Among the heroic and devoted women who labored for the soldiers of the Union in the Civil War, and endured all the dangers and privations of hospital life, was Miss Melcenia Elliott of Iowa. Born in Indiana, and reared in the northern part of Iowa, she grew to womanhood amid the scenes and associations of country life, with a generous nature, superior physical health, and a heart warm with the love of country and humanity.

Her father was a prosperous farmer, and gave three of his sons to the struggle for the Union, who served honorably to the end of their enlistment, and one of them re-enlisted as a veteran, performing the perilous duties of a spy, that he might obtain valuable information to guide the movements of our forces.

The Civil War
At the beginning of the war, Melcenia was a student at Washington College in Iowa, an institution open to both sexes, and under the patronage of the United Presbyterian Church. But the organization of regiments composed of her friends and neighbors, and the enlistment of her brothers in the Union army of the Union fired her ardent soul with patriotism.

For many months, her thoughts were far more with the soldiers in the field than on her studies, and as soon as there was a demand for female nurses in the hospitals, she offered her services and was accepted.

During the summer and autumn of 1862, she was in the hospitals in Tennessee, ready on all occasions for the most difficult posts of service, ministering at the bedside of the sick and wounded, cheering them with her warm words of encouragement and sympathy and her pleasant smile.

In all hospital work, in the offices of nursing and watching, and giving of medicines, in the preparation of special diet, in the care and attention necessary to have the hospital beds clean and comfortable, and the wards in proper order, she was untiring and never gave way to weariness or failed in strength.

Memphis Hospitals
During the winter of 1862-63, she was a nurse at a hospital at Memphis, and rendered most useful and excellent service. In one of the hospitals, there was a sick soldier who came from her neighborhood in Iowa, whom she had known, and for whose family she felt a friendly interest. She often visited him in the sick ward where he was, and did what she could to alleviate his suffering, and to comfort him in his illness.

But gradually he became worse, and when he needed her sympathy and kind attention more than ever, the surgeon in charge issued an order that excluded all visitors from the wards, during those times when she could leave the hospital where she was on duty and visit her sick neighbor and friend.

The front entrance of the hospital was guarded, but she had too much resolution and too much kindness of heart to be thwarted in her good intentions. By scaling a high fence in the rear of the hospital, she could enter without being obstructed by guards. Aided by the nurses on duty in the ward, she made her visits in the evening to the sick man's bedside until he died. It was his dying wish that his remains be carried home to his family, none of whom were present, and Melcenia undertook that difficult task.

Getting leave of absence from her own duties, without the needed funds for the trip, Melcenia made the journey alone, with the body in her charge – all the way from Memphis to Washington, Iowa, overcoming all difficulties of procuring transportation. By this act of heroism, she won the gratitude of many hearts, and gave comfort and satisfaction to the friends and relatives of the departed soldier.

Benton Barracks Hospital
Returning as far as St. Louis, she was transferred to the large military hospital at Benton Barracks and didn't return to Memphis. Here for many months during 1863, she served faithfully, and was considered one of the most efficient and capable nurses in the hospital.

At Benton, she became associated with a band of noble young women, under the supervision of Miss Emily Parsons of Cambridge, Massachusetts, who had left her pleasant New England home to be at the head of the nursing department there. Warm friendships grew among these women, and Miss Parsons never ceased to regard with deep interest, the tall, determined girl, who never allowed any obstacle to stand between her and any useful service she could render to the defenders of her country.

During the summer of 1863, it became necessary to establish a ward for cases of erysipelas, a skin disease that was generating an unhealthy atmosphere. The surgeon in charge, instead of assigning a female nurse, called for a volunteer among the women nurses of the hospital.

There was naturally some hesitancy about taking so trying and dangerous a position, but Miss Elliott promptly offered her services. For several months she performed her duties in the erysipelas ward with the same concern for the welfare of the patients that had characterized her work in other positions.

The Refugee Home of St. Louis
Late in the fall of 1863, Miss Elliott yielded to the wishes of the Western Sanitary Commission, and became matron of the Refugee Home of St. Louis – a charitable institution that was designed to give shelter and assistance to poor families of refugees, mostly widows and children, who were constantly arriving from the exposed and desolated portions of Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.

They were sent north, often by military authority, as deck passengers on Government boats to get them away from the military posts in our possession further south. For a year, Miss Elliott managed the internal affairs of that institution with great efficiency and good judgment, under circumstances that were very trying.

Many of the refugees were of the class called the poor white trash of the South – filthy, ragged, proud, indolent, ill-mannered, given to the smoking and chewing of tobacco, often diseased, inefficient, and either unwilling or unable to conform to the necessary regulations of the Home, or to do their own proper share of the work of the household, and the keeping of their apartments clean and orderly.

It was a great trial of her Christian patience to see families of children of all ages, dirty, ragged, and ill-mannered, lounging in the halls and at the front door, and their mothers doing little better themselves, getting into disputes with each other, chewing or smoking tobacco, and leaving the necessary work allotted to them neglected and undone.

But out of this confusion Miss Elliott, by her efficiency and force of character, brought a good degree of cleanliness and order. Among other things, she established a school in the Home, gathered the children into it in the evening, taught them to spell, read and sing, and inspired them with a desire for knowledge.

At the end of a year of this work, Miss Elliott was called to the position of matron of the Soldiers' Orphans' Home, at Farmington, Iowa, which she filled for several months, with her usual efficiency and success. After long and arduous service for the soldiers, for the refugees, and for the orphans of our country's defenders, she returned home to her family, and to the society and occupations for which she was preparing herself before the war.

SOURCE
Woman's Work in the Civil War

Mary Morris Husband

noreply@blogger.com (Maggiemac) — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:28:00 +0000

Mary Morris Husband was a well known Pennsylvania nurse, whose illustrious career found her serving the physical, psychological, and legal needs of the men in her care. She was known as the nurse with the apron of miracle pockets, because her deep, wide pockets carried games and reading material that entertained and filled the soldiers' long hours of recovery.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Mary Morris was the granddaughter of Robert Morris, Revolutionary War financier and signer of the Declaration of Independence. She married a prominent and wealthy Philadelphia attorney, J. I. Husband.

Mary Morris Husband

Her husband, her two sons, and herself constituted her household at the beginning of the Civil War. Patriotic instincts were strong in the family, and the two sons enlisted in the army at the very beginning of the conflict, one of them leaving his medical studies to do so.

Civil War Nurse
She began nursing sick and wounded Civil War soldiers at age 41 with the Philadelphia Ladies Aid Society, working in Philadelphia military hospitals. She was an admirable nurse and a skilful housewife and cook, and her first efforts for the sick and wounded soldiers in Philadelphia were directed to the preparation of suitable food for them, and relief from the discomforts of sickness in a hospital. Most of her work was done at the hospital on Twenty-second and Wood streets in Philadelphia.

Mary worked for three years in field hospitals and traveled on hospital transports to Harrison's Landing, Baltimore, and Antietam MD, and Fredericksburg VA. She also traveled with the Army to Gettysburg in June of 1863, and a year later served in hospitals at Port Royal and at White House, Virginia.

During and after the Battle Seven Days' on the peninsula in Virginia in 1862, when from the combined influence of marsh malaria, the heat and fatigue of constant fighting, and the depression of spirits incident to the unexpected retreat, more men fell with mortal sickness than were slain or wounded in the battles.

One of Mrs. Husband's sons was among the sufferers from disease, and word was sent to her that he was at the point of death. She hastened to nurse him, and after a great struggle and frequent relapses, he rallied and began to recover. Every moment that could be spared from her sick boy, was given to the other suffering soldiers there.

The Hospital Transports
As her son began to recover, Mary resolved to devote herself to the care of the sick and wounded of the army, and the Sanitary Commission assigned her to the position of Lady Superintendent of one of the hospital transports that bore the wounded and sick from Virginia to New York. She made four trips on these vessels, and her skillful nursing won for her the hearty regard of all onboard.

While the troops were being transferred to Acquia Creek and Alexandria, Mrs. Husband went to Washington, where Miss Dorothea Dix, Superintendent of Union Nurses, asked Mary to take charge temporarily of the Camden Street Hospital at Baltimore.

Antietam
After a few weeks' stay there, Mary went to Antietam, where the smoke of the great battle was just rolling off over the heights of South Mountain. There, at the Smoketown Hospital, where the wounded from French's and some other divisions were gathered, she found abundant employment. At the request of the surgeon in charge, she remained in charge two months.

On her way home she stopped for an hour or two at camps A and B in Frederick, Maryland, where a considerable number of the convalescents from Antietam had been sent, and these on discovering her, surrounded her ambulance and greeted her most heartily, seeming almost wild with joy at seeing their kind friend once more.

After a brief stay at Philadelphia, during which she visited the hospitals almost constantly, she hastened again to the front, and at Falmouth, Virginia, early in 1863, after that fearful and disastrous battle of Fredericksburg she found ample employment for her active and energetic nature.

As matron of Humphreys' Division Hospital (Fifth Corps), she was constantly engaged in ministering to the comfort of the wounded, and her solicitude for the welfare and prosperity of the men did not end with their discharge from the hospital. The informalities or blunders by which they too often lost their pay and were sometimes set down as deserters attracted her attention, and so far as possible she always procured the correction of those errors.

Chancellorsville
In early May 1863, immediately after the Battle of Chancellorsville, Mrs. Husband went to United States Ford, but was not allowed to cross, and joined two Maine ladies at the hospital on the north side of the Rappahannock River, where they dressed wounds until dark, slept in an ambulance, and early in the morning went to work again, but were soon warned to leave, as it was supposed that the house used as a hospital would be shelled.

They left, and about half a mile farther on found the hospital of the Third and Eleventh Corps. Here the surgeon in charge urged Mrs. Husband to remain and assist him, promising her transportation. She accordingly left her ambulance and dressed wounds until midnight. By this time the army was in full retreat and passing the hospital. The surgeon forgot his promise, and left Mary to get away as best she could.

It was pitch dark and the rain pouring in torrents. She was finally offered a part of the front seat of a medicine wagon, and after riding two or three miles on the horrible roads the tongue of the wagon broke, and she was compelled to sit in the drenching rain for two or three hours until the guide could bring up an ambulance, in which she reached Falmouth the next day.

The hospital of which she was lady matron was broken up at the time of this battle, but she was immediately installed in the same position in the hospital of the Third Division of the Third Corps, then filled to overflowing with the Chancellorsville wounded. Here she remained until compelled to move North with the army by Lee's raid into Pennsylvania in June and July, 1863.

Gettysburg
On the July 3, the day of the last and fiercest of the Gettysburg battles, Mrs. Husband started for Gettysburg, determined to go to the aid and relief of the soldier boys, who, she well knew, needed her services. She reached the battlefield on the morning of the 4th in General Meade's mail wagon. She worked at the field hospital of the Third Corps until that as well as the other field hospitals were broken up, when she devoted herself to the wounded at Camp Letterman.

Here Mary was attacked with miasmatic fever, remaining for three weeks ill in her tent. She was eventually carried home, but as soon as she was well went to Camp Parole at Annapolis, as agent of the Sanitary Commission, to fill the place of Miss Clara Davis, who was prostrated by severe illness induced by her severe and continued labors.

Defending the Innocent
In the autumn of 1863, Mrs. Husband's attention was called to the injustice of a court martial that had tried a private soldier for some alleged offence and sentenced him to be shot to death. She investigated the case and, with some difficulty, succeeded in procuring his pardon from President Lincoln.

She began from this time to take an interest in these cases of trial by summary court martial, making a study of each one, and though she found that there were some cases in which the punishment was merited, the majority were deserving of clemency. She became their advocate with the patient and kind-hearted Lincoln.

In scores of instances she secured, not without much difficulty, the pardon or the commutation of punishment of those sentenced to death. Rarely, if ever, did the President turn a deaf ear to her pleadings. Every case she presented had been thoroughly and carefully examined, and her knowledge of it was so complete, that he felt he might safely trust her.

Her persistence healed many injustices. This included her son, Henry, who benefited from his mother's work when President Lincoln signed the order to free him and return him to duty in December 1863.

In December, 1863, Mrs. Husband accepted the position of matron at her old hospital – Third Division of the Third Corps – then located at Brandy Station, where she remained until General Grant's order issued on the 15th of April, 1864, caused the removal of all civilians from the army.

The Wilderness and Spotsylvania
A month had not elapsed, before the terrible slaughter at the Battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania had made that part of Virginia a field of blood, and Mrs. Husband hastened to Fredericksburg where she remained until the first of June, and then moving on to Port Royal and White House, where the same sad scenes were repeated.

At White House, she took charge of the low diet kitchen for the whole Sixth Corps, to which her division had been transferred. The number of wounded was very large, this corps having suffered severely in the battle of Cold Harbor, and her duties were arduous, but she made no complaint, her heart being at rest if she could only do something for her brave soldier boys.

When the base was transferred to City Point, she made her way to the Third Division, Sixth Corps Hospital at the front, where she remained until the Sixth Corps were ordered to the Shenandoah Valley, when she took charge of the low diet kitchen of the Second Corps' Hospital at City Point, and remained there until the end of the Civil War.

On May 6, 1865, Mrs. Husband was gratified by the sight of the gallant Union army marching through Richmond. As they passed, hundreds of the soldiers of the Second, Third, and Sixth Corps, rang out the loud and hearty "Hurrah for Mother Husband!"

Mary felt that she must do something more for her "boys" before they separated and returned to their distant homes. She went to Philadelphia and gathered from her liberal friends and her own moderate means enough money to procure the necessary supplies.

She returned to Virginia, and met the soldiers of the corps to which she had been attached at Bailey's Cross Roads, and there spent six or seven days distributing to them the clothing and other necessities she had brought. Her last opportunity of seeing them was a few days later at the Grand Review in Washington.

After the War
Through all these labors and toils, Mrs. Husband received no compensation from the government or from the Sanitary Commission. She entered the service as a volunteer, her necessities were met from her own means, and she also gave freely to the soldiers and to their families. Her reward was in knowing that she had accomplished an amount of good that few could equal.

All over the land, in hundreds of homes, in thousands of hearts, her name was a household word, and as the mother looks upon her son, the wife upon her husband, the child upon its father, blessings were breathed forth upon her through whose skilful care and watchful nursing these loved ones were spared.

After the war, Mary lived in Florida with her husband and sons. In 1883, she worked in the Pension Office in Washington DC, and she received a pension of $25 per month for her work during the war.

Mary Morris Husband died on March 3, 1894 and is buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

SOURCE
Woman's Work in the Civil War

Frances Dana Gage

noreply@blogger.com (Maggiemac) — Tue, 06 May 2008 17:38:00 +0000

Writer, Abolitionist, and Women's Rights Activist
On October 12, 1808, Frances Dana Barker was born in the township of Union, Ohio. Her parents were among the first settlers in the United States Northwest Territory. Her mother was Elizabeth Dana of Massachusetts, and her maternal grandmother was Mary Bancroft. She was thus allied on the maternal side to the well-known Massachusetts families of Dana and Bancroft.

Frances was educated at a log cabin in the woods, and grew up as a farmer's daughter. She spun the garments she wore, made cheese and butter, and did outdoor chores.

Frances Dana Gage

Frances made frequent visits to her grandmother, Mary Bancroft Dana, whose home was at Belpre, Ohio. Mary Dana was a radical on the subject of slavery, and Frances learned from her to hate the word, and all it represented. Frances was frequently laughed at in childhood because she sympathized with the poor fugitives from slavery, who often found their way to the neighborhood in which she lived, seeking kindness and charity of the people.

It had not then become a crime to help a slave, and Mrs. Barker often sent her daughter on errands of mercy to the nearby cabins, where fugitive slave sought shelter, often to be caught and sent back to their masters. Frances early became familiar with their suffering and their needs.

At the age of twenty, on January 1, 1829, Frances Barker married James L. Gage, an abolitionist lawyer from McConnellsville, Ohio, who hated the system of slavery in the South. Moral integrity, and unflinching fidelity to the cause of humanity, were leading traits of his character.

Frances was a dedicated advocate of the social reform movements that were organized during the decades prior to the Civil War, and she always found herself in a minority through all the struggling years between 1832 and 1865. The great moral struggle, in her opinion, required far more heroism than that which marshaled our hosts along the Potomac, prompted Sheridan's raids, or Sherman's triumphant March to the Sea.

The editor of the State Journal invited her to write weekly for his columns during a year. This, at that time seemed to her a great achievement. But when she wrote about her opposition to the Fugitive Slave Law, the editor sent a note saying her services were no longer wanted.

Professional writing brought Frances regional fame. Writing in The Ohio Cultivator and other regional journals as Aunt Fanny, she offered a warm domestic persona who offered advice and support to isolated housewives in Ohio. She wrote letters, essays, poetry, children's stories, and novels. She also contributed to the Western Literary Magazine, New York's Independent, Missouri Democrat, Cincinnati's Ladies Repository, Field Notes, The National Anti-Slavery Standard, Una, and Jane Grey Swisshelm's Saturday Visiter.

She extended her circle of acquaintance beyond Ohio by writing letters to women of like mind. Amelia Bloomer, engaged her to write for the New York State temperance newspaper, The Lily. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, whose 1848 Seneca Falls Convention launched the women's rights movement in America, was also on the staff.

Women's Rights Movement
In all her warfare against social wrongs – temperance, slavery, and women's rights – her fight for the liberties of her own sex subjected her to the most trying persecution, insult, and neglect. In the region of Ohio where she lived, she stood almost alone, but she was never inclined to yield.

In 1851, Frances presided over a women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio, where her opening speech introducing Sojourner Truth attracted much attention. Later, Gage recorded her recollection of Truth's speech, "Ain't I a Woman?" Her version has become the standard text and account of that famous speech.

Gage stepped comfortably into the roles of public organizer and orator. She was a talented public speaker for more than 30 years to audiences of both men and women. She worked as Stanton's agent, canvassing for signatures in New York State and Ohio, and supported Susan B. Anthony's program to make legal changes in the states' law codes.

Between 1853 and 1857, the Gages lived in St. Louis, Missouri. Missouri was a slave state, and Frances's ideas and her submissions to local newspapers were not welcome. She boldly stated her beliefs whenever the opportunity arose, and was often threatened with violence due to her anti-slavery views. She was soon branded as an abolitionist, and the family endured threats of violence and attempts to burn them out.

Because of her husband's failure in business at St. Louis and his ill-health, Frances took a job as Editor of the Home Department of an agricultural paper in Columbus, Ohio in 1860. The war destroyed the circulation of the paper, and she was again without work. But in 1861, she took part in the political campaign that led to the passage of Ohio's first Woman's Rights Bill.

The Civil War
In 1861 when the Civil War began, four of the Gage sons joined the Union Army, and Frances began lecturing on supporting the troops. The call for help for the soldiers, was responded to by all loyal women. Mrs. Gage did what she could with her hands, but found them tied by unavoidable labors. She offered tongue and pen, and found them much more efficient agents.

The Freedmen
In the autumn of 1862, Frances and her daughter, Mary, went to the Sea Islands in South Carolina to train ex-slaves. As Superintendent of Parris Island, she proved to be a capable organizer. There she met and befriended nurse Clara Barton, who was working at nearby Hilton Head. Barton recorded in her diaries how much she learned from Aunt Fanny, who had expanded her notions of injustice to include freedmen's and women's rights.

James Gage became critically ill and died before Frances could reach his side in Ohio. When she returned to Parris Island, she learned that Barton was moving on. Gage briefly served at another medical facility in Fernandina, Florida, then returned to the North, having worked in the war-torn South for over a year.

The Lecture Circuit
In the fall of 1863, Mrs. Gage returned north, and began a lecture tour, speaking to the people of her "experiences among the Freedmen." She gave a truthful portrayal of slavery and its barbarity, its demoralization of master and man, and the intensely human character of the slave, who for two hundred years had preserved so much goodness, patient hope, a desire for knowledge and the capability of self-support.

She believed that by removing prejudice, and inspiring confidence in the Emancipation Proclamation, and by striving to unite the people on this great issue, she could do more than in any other way to end the war and relieve the soldier – such was the aim of her lectures.

Thus, in all the inclement winter weather – through Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri – she pursued her labors of love, never omitting an evening when she could get an audience to address, speaking for Soldiers' Aid Societies and giving the proceeds to those who worked only for the soldier, then for Freedmen's Associations. She worked without fee or reward, asking only of those who were willing to give enough to defray her expenses.

In the summer of 1864, Frances traveled down the Mississippi to help the injured at Memphis, Vicksburg, and Natchez. She went as an unsalaried agent of the Western Sanitary Commission, receiving only her expenses, and the goods and provisions to relieve the want and misery of the suffering soldiers.

A few months' experience among the Union refugees and fugitives convinced her that her best work for all was in the lecturing field, in rousing the hearts of the multitude to good deeds. She had but one weak pair of hands, while her voice might set a hundred pairs in motion, and believing that we err if we fail to use our best powers for life's best uses, she again entered the lecturing field in the west, speaking almost nightly.

After the War
Women's rights leaders and friends like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Amelia Bloomer, Lucy Stone, and Antoinette Brown encouraged Frances to be the women's rights emissary in America's Midwest. Her lecture circuit included Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee.

In September 1865, Frances was crippled when her carriage overturned at Galesburg, Illinois, after she spoke at Edward Beecher's Indiana Church. After recuperating at a daughter's home for nearly a year, she decided to move to Lambertsville, New Jersey. This put her closer to publishers, other activists, and national meetings that were often held in New York City and Philadelphia.

In her Address to the First Anniversary of the American Equal Rights Association in 1867, she asked that women should get the vote: "Because it is right, and because there are wrongs in the community that can be righted in no other way." She also complained about social attitudes that restricted women to the household: "You have attempted to mold seventeen millions of human souls in one shape, and make them all do one thing."

Soon thereafter, Frances was permanently disabled by a stroke. Meanwhile the women's suffrage organizations were reorganized and redirected. Frances couldn't participate in the political strategizing, nor could she travel or address audiences, so she focused instead upon novel writing, using this medium to promote temperance and women's rights.

Of her Universalist faith, Frances wrote late in her life:

There came a time when [Universalists] refused to go with me as an abolitionist, an advocate for the rights of women, for earnest temperance pleaders. Then it came to me that Christ's death as an atonement for sinners was not truth, but He had died for what He believed to be truth.

Then came the war, then trouble, then paralysis, and for fourteen years I have not listened to a sermon because I am too great a cripple. I have read much, thought much, and feel that life is too precious to be given to doctrines.

After being an invalid for years, Frances Dana Gage died in Greenwich, Connecticut on November 10, 1884.

Frances Dana Gage Quote:

When we hold the ballot, we shall stand just there. Men will forget to tell us that politics are degrading. They will bow low, and actually respect the women to whom they now talk platitudes; and silly flatteries, sparkling eyes, rosy cheeks, pearly teeth, ruby lips, the soft and delicate hands of refinement and beauty, will not be the burden of their song; but the strength, the power, the energy, the force, the intellect and the nerve, which the womanhood of this country will bring to bear, and which will infuse itself through all the ranks of society, must make all its men and women wiser and better.

SOURCE
Frances Dana Gage
Frances Dana Barker Gage
Woman's Work in the Civil War