Cassandra D. Lost Daughters of McGuire the Confederacy: Common White Women in Civil War Era

Te North Carolina Women of the Confederacy Memorial stands in a prominent position on the lawn of the State Capitol in Raleigh. Unveiled in 1914, it depicts a seated grandmother reading to her grandson about the exploits of his father, her son, who fought and died in the Confederate army during the Civil War. Te monument was commissioned in 1911 by Ashley Horne, a wealthy resident of Johnston County who was then serving as a representative in the North Carolina General Assembly. Horne was deeply disappointed that, ffy years afer the war, the General Assembly had yet to approve the construction traces of a memorial to the Confederate women of North Carolina. Even as a veteran of the Confederate army, Horne maintained that the women of his state had been “as great or greater soldiers than the men,” making valuable and heroic contributions to the war efort. Horne had grown impatient waiting for the state government to commission such a memorial, so he volunteered to pay for it himself. His ofer was promptly accepted, but

10 Cassandra D. McGuire

The North Carolina Women of the Confederacy Memorial in Raleigh, NC, depicts a woman reading to her grandson about her father’s heroic acts during his service in the Confederate army. (Photo by Cassandra D. McGuire.)1

Horne passed away prior to the statue’s completion.2 At the unveiling ceremony, Daniel Harvey Hill, then president of North Carolina State University, incorporated the late Ashley Horne’s words into his dedication speech, declaring, “Te silent woman of the memorial will typify the uncomplaining women of the South.” Tis provocative statement illustrates that, in the eyes of both Horne and Hill, most North

1 Photo taken by Cassandra McGuire on September 16, 2011. This monument is one of many surrounding the North Carolina State Capitol in Raleigh. 2 R.D.W. Connor, comp., Addresses at the Unveiling of the Memorial to the North Carolina Women of the Confederacy, Presented to the State by the Late Ashley Horne (Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton Printing Co., 1914), 5-6. 11 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

Carolina “women of the Confederacy” were “silent,” unquestioningly and self-sacrifcially supporting the Confederate war efort despite the many hardships they faced on the home front. I have termed this concept the “Myth of Confederate Womanhood,” as it promulgates a misleading portrait of the women who lived in Civil War era North Carolina. In reality, even staunch secessionists such as North Carolina plantation mistress Catherine Devereux Edmondston occasionally complained about the wartime economy and the absence of male kin. Yet women of Edmondston’s class generally had access to enough wealth to ensure their survival in a reasonably comfortable manner, even if they were inconvenienced by high prices and a relative lack of accessible male labor. Many other women in the state with far less economic security risked starvation during the war years. In this article, I refer to such women as “common whites,” a term used to describe North Carolinians who were quite poor and whose families may or may not have owned land. Common white women recognized that the wartime policies of the Confederate government, especially conscription and impressment, threatened their families’ survival by draining their already limited resources. Rather than sufering silently, many of these women made themselves heard, communicating their plight through words and actions in the hope of receiving compensatory aid.3 Notably, common white women comprise one of the least-discussed demographic groups that inhabited the Civil War era South. Tey are undeniably underrepresented in the accounts of the Civil War that have emerged since 1865, as until the past few decades historians typically focused upon the dominant (ofen upper-class and male) narrative of events. Tere are likely other reasons for these women’s marginalization, though. In her study of Southern womanhood in the Civil War era, Laura F.

3 Daniel Harvey Hill, “The Women of the Confederacy,” in Addresses at the Unveiling of the Memorial, 10. See also Catherine Devereux Edmondston, Journal of a Secesh Lady: The Diary of Catherine Ann Devereux Edmondston, 1860-1866, ed. Beth G. Crabtree and James W. Patton (Raleigh: Division of Archives and History Dept. of Cultural Resources, 1979). The “Myth of Confederate Womanhood” is not to be confused with the similar “myth of Southern womanhood,” which focuses upon antebellum women’s supposed complete adherence to period gender roles and expected standards of social behavior (see George C. Rable, Civil Wars: Women and the Crisis of Southern Nationalism [Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989], 5). The term “common whites” (see Bill Cecil-Fronsman, Common Whites: Class and Culture in Antebellum North Carolina [Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992], 1) is used throughout this article rather than distinguishing between the “yeomanry” and “poor whites,” as it is often unclear whether the women being discussed were from landowning families. It is quite clear, however, that they were white and of low social and economic status. 12 Cassandra D. McGuire

Edwards discusses the absence of common white women from the history of the Reconstruction era using an argument that applies to the war years as well. Edwards acknowledges that common white women generally kept few written records of their lives, as many were illiterate and nearly all lacked the leisure time necessary to keep a diary or journal. Terefore it has proved challenging for historians to study them. Edwards insists, however, that there is more to the story than a lack of documentation. “Historical frameworks,” she writes, “have rendered [common white women] invisible” during this general time period. Specifcally, Edwards refers to the various approaches used to study the Civil War era South and surmises that many historians have simply underestimated the importance of common white women to the politics and economy of the South.4 While Edwards’s argument clarifes why many historians may have marginalized common white women, it does not adequately explain why these women were largely omitted from accounts of the Civil War written by their contemporaries. Tis article ofers an explanation, arguing that the “Lost Cause” ideology manufactured by elite former Confederates in the post-war era to preserve the honor of the South was a historical framework that, by defnition, had to exclude common white women, because the story of the “Lost Cause” included the “Myth of Confederate Womanhood.” Unlike the uncomplaining, “silent” women glorifed by this myth, many common white women in the South did not harbor exclusively positive feelings for the Confederate government or for the war efort. Instead, these women represent an alternative form of Confederate womanhood in which women did not silently accept the economic hardships placed on them because of the war and Confederate policies, but rather protested and demanded aid. Tere is ample reason to believe that elite Southern writers and educators who stood to beneft from portraying the South as a land of class harmony and selfess devotion to the Cause may have deliberately marginalized common white women in their writings in order to hide the Confederacy’s history of dissent from both outsiders and future generations. Tis article seeks to bring these women’s experiences to light, exploring their reasons for dissent and their methods of protest on the North Carolina home front and serving as a counter-memorial to the monument in Raleigh, emphasizing an

4 Laura F. Edwards, Scarlett Doesn’t Live Here Anymore: Southern Women in the Civil War Era (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 150. 13 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

alternative form of Confederate womanhood that has largely been written out of the popular understanding of the Civil War.

Despair and Defance: Common White Women on the North Carolina Home Front Tose familiar with Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 novel Gone with the Wind, or the 1939 flm based on it, would likely agree that the character of Melanie Wilkes represents an ideal Confederate woman. Like most of the women in the novel, Wilkes is a Southern belle from a wealthy family who was raised to exhibit ladylike manners as a devoted wife and mother. When her husband leaves to fght in the Confederate army, Wilkes cheerfully does all she can to support the country for which he is fghting, including volunteering to nurse wounded soldiers and donating her golden wedding ring to be traded for medical supplies for Southern soldiers. Her selfess and patriotic acts, which endear her to many readers, are similar to those frequently glorifed in postbellum accounts of Confederate women. By focusing attention and praise upon women like the fctional Melanie Wilkes, historians and memoirists marginalize another group of white women in the South: those who could not donate valuables because they had few possessions, and those who could not aford to volunteer their labor to support the Confederate army because they needed income to support their families. Tese common white women and their struggles on the North Carolina home front merit further study.5 Common white women in Civil War era North Carolina experienced considerable sufering, largely due to conditions on the home front. Tese conditions generally worsened as the war progressed. One of the major problems faced by the Confederacy was a shortage of manufactured goods. Because the antebellum South’s economy was primarily agriculturally based, the region’s industries were far less numerous and developed than the North’s. Additionally, the Union blockade was well established by 1863, choking the economy of the South by preventing essential imports from reaching Confederate harbors. Many of the items needed on both the battlefeld and the home front became difcult to obtain, causing prices to

5 Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind (New York: Warner Books, 1964), 158-159, 184-186. 14 Cassandra D. McGuire

soar throughout the war years. Te poor naturally sufered the most, as the cost of even basic necessities grew beyond their reach. Another signifcant problem faced by the Confederacy was the rampant infation of the nation’s currency. Historian Charles W. Ramsdell has written that the Confederate government’s decision to “resort to irredeemable paper money and to excessive issues of such currency was fatal, for it not only weakened the purchasing power of the government but also destroyed economic security among the people.” Furthermore, as a result of this constant devaluation of currency, the Confederate government established a tax rate so exorbitant that plantation mistress Catherine Devereux Edmondston wondered “how salaried men [could] live.” For many families in North Carolina, the combination of infation and taxation resulted in extreme poverty and even starvation.6 Te plight of the poor was worsened by the seemingly constant extortion of speculators. In her diary, Edmondston noted that “the poorer classes throughout the country … were terribly ground and imposed upon by Speculators who in some instances had the face to ask 25 and $28 per sack [of salt].” Salt was not the only item being sold at artifcially high prices. Merchants seeking a proft at the expense of their neighbors purchased all manner of staple goods in order to drive prices up. In the words of North Carolinian E.T. Graham, the speculators then made “the Poor believe things [could not] be had possibly for a lower price,” thus “defrauding the helpless” people of North Carolina.7 With so many forces working against the poor people of the South, many felt disenfranchised and even betrayed by the Confederate government, which they felt had disregarded the gravity of their plight. Teir frustration was further aroused by the passage of the frst Confederate conscription act on April 16, 1862. Tis law required all white men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-fve to join the army, regardless of the economic condition of their families. Many indigent families were thus deprived of their primary breadwinners, forcing common white women—many of whom had already been working for wages in the past—to take on increased

6 Charles W. Ramsdell, cited in Emory M. Thomas, The Confederacy as a Revolutionary Experience (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1971), 81; Edmondston, 376. 7 Edmondston, 100; E.T. Graham, cited in Victoria E. Bynum, Unruly Women: The Politics of Social and Sexual Control in the Old South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 120. 15 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

responsibility for the survival of both themselves and their families.8 In addition to demanding that North Carolina women sacrifce their men, the Confederate government also laid claim to their food and other resources through the policy of impressment. Because the Piedmont region of North Carolina was protected from Union invasion until very late in the war, it remained relatively well provisioned, attracting Confederate impressment agents. Tese agents forcibly took many resources away from the citizenry in order to support the army, ofering only the most meager compensation in exchange. Common white women who were already struggling to feed their families had practically no resources to spare, making them outraged that the government might take what little they had.9 No longer willing to accept quietly the conditions in which they were forced to live, many women from all classes began to voice their discontent by writing supplicant letters to North Carolina’s governor, Zebulon B. Vance. Tese letters include some of the only surviving documents written by common white women, making the letters valuable sources for historians wishing to recover these women’s voices. Because women rarely included specifc details about their property holdings, income, or social class in their letters to Governor Vance, it can be difcult to discern between common white women and those of the wealthier classes. For the purposes of my research, I made educated guesses about the social class of each writer by analyzing three main characteristics of each letter: the quality of the handwriting, the writing style employed (including spelling, grammar, and vocabulary), and the letter’s content. Generally, I assume that letters exhibiting poor literacy or crude handwriting were written by common white women, as they typically would have been less educated than women of the wealthier classes. Tere is admittedly a margin for error in using this system, however, as a relatively wealthy woman may exhibit poor writing skills, or vice versa. Furthermore, ethnicity cannot be determined by handwriting. Te letters discussed here, however, generally refect the

8 James M. Matthews, ed., “Public Laws of the Confederate States of America, Passed at the First Session of the First Congress; 1862,” in The Statutes at Large of the Confederate States of America, Commencing with the First Session of the First Congress; 1862 (Richmond: R. M. Smith, Printer to Congress, 1862), 29-30. 9 Mary Elizabeth Massey, Ersatz in the Confederacy: Shortages and Substitutes on the Southern Homefront (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1993), 25; Andrew F. Smith, Starving the South: How the North Won the Civil War (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2011), 41-44. 16 Cassandra D. McGuire issues faced by common white women and are thus relevant, even if the economic status of their writers cannot be defnitively shown. Although ofen uneducated in matters of grammar and writing style, common white women efectively conveyed the desperation of their plight. In 1863, a woman named Ann McCormicke wrote a heart-rending letter to the governor, describing how her husband had been in the army for a year, leaving her with fve children to support. She claimed, “I have nothing to eat but bread and way [whey] and little of that…. Tere is plenty of provision in this place but ... [the ofcials] will not let me have a pound of meat nor a bushel of corn and I don’t know what to do.” Another woman, Martha Coletrane, had written several months before to ask that men from ages thirty-fve to forty-fve be exempted from conscription, insisting that such a policy would create chaos in families like her own. “We hav eight children,” she wrote, “and an old aged mother to support, which makes eleven in our family and without my husband we are a desolate and ruined family for extortion runs so hie here we cannot support and clothe our family without [his] help.” Another letter to the governor, written jointly by a group of North Carolina women in 1863, expressed what most common white women must have been thinking regarding the Confederate government: “We have given our sons an husbands an brothers to the batle feld an hav lost many of them an afer so much we have done there is ... men clames to be details raging through this section clameing to have the power to [im]press any thing an evry thing they want.” She adds, “If we ar fting for liberty let us hav it.”10 Sometimes, instead of writing letters, common white women violently protested conditions on the North Carolina home front. One of the most notable examples of a “female raid” was a bread riot that took place on March 18, 1863, in Salisbury, North Carolina. According to the local newspaper the Carolina Watchman, approximately forty to ffy soldiers’ wives gathered in the streets of Salisbury that day, armed with hatchets and determined to acquire much-needed provisions at reasonable prices, whether by bargain or by force. Te spectacle of a female riot drew a crowd

10 Ann McCormicke to Governor Zebulon B. Vance, March 11, 1863, G.P. 163, Governors’ Papers – , North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, North Carolina; Martha Coletrane to Governor Zebulon B. Vance, November 18, 1862, G.P. 160, Governors’ Papers – Zebulon Baird Vance; J.J. Coner, T.J. Holford, Lina Vess, and Sarah Holferd to Governor Zebulon B. Vance, December 23, 1863, G.P. 172, Governors’ Papers – Zebulon Baird Vance. In the direct quotations included here, I have retained the original spelling and grammar of the authors. 17 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

of onlookers who proceeded to follow the mob on its journey to the homes and shops of local businessmen accused of speculating. Te women frst stopped at a Mr. Brown’s house, where they demanded that four be sold to them at a reasonable price. Mr. Brown initially refused to meet their demands, concerned with the money he would lose. Irate, the women took their hatchets and began dismantling the door to his storeroom. Before they were done, Mr. Brown changed his mind and gave the women ten barrels of four for free, undoubtedly wanting to dispel the mob. Satisfed, the women stormed onward. Many of the other businessmen in town also gave them four, molasses, and salt in an efort to avoid trouble. By evening, the women dispersed, having attained both the supplies and the attention that they had wanted.11 Te Salisbury bread riot was certainly not an isolated incident. Around the same time, in Sander’s Mill, North Carolina, another group of women converged on a government supply center and stole desperately needed provisions. Tere were also several reports throughout the war of North Carolina women physically attacking Confederate ofcials to express their frustration with home front conditions. In February 1863, a group of women from Bladen County, North Carolina, wrote to Governor Vance, sternly advising him to limit the price of bread in order to prevent the extortion of starving citizens by greedy merchants. Te women warned Vance that if he did not heed their letter, they would soon make “examples of all who refused to open there barn doors.” Not long aferward, fve women robbed the Bladenboro grain depot, making good on their threat.12 While many more prosperous North Carolinians were able to take pity on these outspoken common white women, recognizing the seriousness of their economic plight, others were less forgiving. In her journal, Catherine Devereux Edmondston alleged that the Salisbury bread riot was “a small afair for plunder alone” that was “instigated by Yankees,” preferring to think of the rioters as traitors rather than to believe that anyone in her beloved Confederacy could be starving. Governor Vance also clearly stated his feelings toward the riots: “Broken laws will give you no bread, but much

11 Carolina Watchman, March 23, 1863, 2: 2-3. The article does not specifically identify the women involved in the riot as common whites, but their willingness to abandon propriety to acquire provisions suggests that they were probably from the lower classes. 12 Edwards, 93-94; Bynum, 133-134; Smith, 51. 18 Cassandra D. McGuire sorrow,” he insisted, “and when forcible seizures have to be made to avert starvation, let it be done by your county or state agents.”13 Ironically, given the public nature of their petitions to government ofcials and their “female raids,” one of the most efective ways in which common white women grabbed the attention of fellow North Carolinians was a relatively private matter: writing letters to loved ones in the Confederate army. Naturally, literate common white women wrote to their husbands, sons, and other male relatives in the army, sharing news and sending well wishes. In their letters, women frequently described the hardships they were facing on the North Carolina home front as they tried to survive in the wartime economy. Receiving such disheartening messages from their female kin prompted many concerned soldiers to long to return home and provide for their families. Some, like James R. Duncan, wrote to Governor Vance, expressing their concerns. “I have bin 2 years this day in the servis battling for my country and I am yet willing to do my utmost for our country,” Duncan wrote, “but it is very painful to think of my wife and children that is sufering for food.” Other soldiers did not even bother writing such letters or asking for leave. Tey simply deserted in large numbers, weakening the Confederacy’s forces.14 Recognizing the relationship between the tone of women’s letters and their recipients’ willingness to remain in the army, North Carolina leaders undertook a propaganda campaign to discourage women from tempting soldiers to come home. Tis message was spread through moralizing newspaper articles. In the August 24, 1863, issue of the Fayetteville Observer, a writer identifying herself as “Mrs. M.A.C.” implored, “Let each of us be careful that all our communications to husbands, fathers, sons and brothers in the army, breathe a healthful spirit of confdence, cheerfulness and encouragement.” She added, “How cruel to acquaint them with privations and suferings at home, which they cannot mitigate, and wrongs which they cannot prevent.” A more ominous article published in March of that year told the story of a man who received a letter from his wife complaining of the hardships she was enduring and asking him to return home. When the man fnally

13 Edmondston, 378; Zebulon Baird Vance, cited in Bynum, 125-126. 14 James R. Duncan to Governor Zebulon B. Vance, April 27, 1863, G.P. 164, Governors’ Papers – Zebulon Baird Vance. 19 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

decided against his better judgment to desert, he was caught and executed, leaving his wife “constantly haunted with the thought that her exaggerated representations of her trials and suferings caused her husband’s death.” Again and again, North Carolina writers and ofcials insisted that women should be positive and encouraging in their communications with soldiers. It soon became evident, however, that in order for poor women to write optimistic letters to their loved ones, their quality of life needed drastic improvement.15 Troughout North Carolina, wealthier citizens took it upon themselves to help women and children on the brink of starvation, driven by a sense of civic pride as well as a desire to improve the morale of soldiers worried about their families. Many cities, including Wilmington and Fayetteville, successfully organized collections for the poor, with the latter amassing a total of $22,000 in the fall of 1863. North Carolina’s government also intervened. An act ratifed by the North Carolina General Assembly on February 10, 1863, earmarked one million dollars for “the use and beneft of the wives and families of indigent soldiers,” including the families of soldiers who had died in battle. While this interest in supporting the poor was commendable, the system did not work as efectively as it might have. On May 16, 1863, the Semi-Weekly Raleigh Register reported that a large amount of salted pork had been purchased using a government appropriation of $500,000 for the purpose of feeding the poor, but the meat had not been distributed and had thus gone to waste. Tis was undoubtedly not the only incident in which the government’s money was not used efciently.16 North Carolina’s government also sought to help common white women by providing them with jobs in war industries. Tis system ofered the double beneft of employing women who were desperate for income while simultaneously gaining a labor force for the Confederacy’s fedgling industries. In particular, the government needed textile workers to manufacture uniforms and other supplies for Confederate soldiers. In the early years of the war, the Confederate government had depended

15 Fayetteville Observer, August 24, 1863, 2:1-2; Fayetteville Observer, March 5, 1863, 1:6. 16 Fayetteville Observer, January 18, 1864, 1:5; North Carolina General Assembly, “An Act for the Relief of the Wives and Families of Soldiers in the Army,” in Public Laws of the State of North Carolina Passed by the General Assembly at its Session of 1862-’63: Together with the Comptroller’s Statement of Public Revenue and Expenditure (Raleigh, North Carolina: W. W. Holden, Printer to the State, 1863), 63-64; Semi-Weekly Raleigh Register, May 16, 1863, 2:3. 20 Cassandra D. McGuire upon Soldiers’ Aid Societies to sew uniforms, tents, and other supplies for the soldiers. Tese organizations were comprised of female volunteers from the wealthier classes who could aford to work without pay. As the war progressed, however, the Confederate government recognized a need to standardize both the distribution and quality of uniforms and thus increasingly relied upon professional manufacturers to supply the army. Although these manufacturers were generally male, they ofen hired women workers to fulfll their military contracts. Tis was the case, for example, in Salisbury, where manufacturers William Howard and James B. Beard advertised job openings for fve hundred female workers in 1863. Now that women were being paid for this work, making uniforms proved to be an excellent opportunity for common white women.17 In addition to taking jobs in textile mills and as seamstresses, common white women also worked in powder mills, cartridge factories, and other war-related industries. Unfortunately, their wages ofen lef much to be desired. For example, the twenty-nine women who worked at the North Carolina Arsenal in Fayetteville during the month of August, 1861, earned only forty to ffy cents each day, substantially less than nearly all of the arsenal’s male employees, both free and enslaved. Supporting a family on such meager earnings would have been extremely difcult if not impossible.18 North Carolinians’ attempts to provide aid for common white women generally fell short, leaving the women as restless as ever and increasingly unhappy with their government and the war. Notably, many common white women in North Carolina had not been overwhelmingly supportive of going to war in the frst place. Civil War historians have long recognized that a signifcant number of North Carolinians sympathized with the Union during the war, and even among those who were loyal to the Confederacy, many had only reluctantly supported secession. Tis was particularly true of common whites, who had less economic incentive than their wealthy, slaveholding neighbors to risk their lives and livelihoods in defense of the institution of slavery. It was only

17 LeeAnn Whites, The Civil War as a Crisis in Gender: Augusta, Georgia, 1860-1890 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995), 85; Harold S. Wilson, Confederate Industry: Manufacturers and Quartermasters in the Civil War (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002), 14; Carolina Watchman, January 12, 1863, 3:4. 18 Thomas, 107; William Bell, “Return of Hired Men Employed at North Carolina Arsenal, for the Month of August, 1861,” G.P. 153, Governors’ Papers – . 21 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

afer Abraham Lincoln began acting against the interests of Southerners— frst by sending supplies to Fort Sumter, a garrison located within Confederate-claimed territory, and then by calling upon North Carolina men to help suppress the Confederate states—that North Carolina’s formerly reluctant secessionists had taken up arms against Lincoln’s administration, determined to defend their homes and society against a government they believed had become tyrannical. Ultimately, however, for many common white women whose men and livelihoods were being seized by Confederate conscription laws and impressment agents, Lincoln’s government began looking less abhorrent every day.19 Deeply concerned by growing female unrest in North Carolina, Governor Vance wrote a letter to the Confederate States of America’s president, Jeferson Davis, suggesting that the Confederacy enter peace negotiations with the Union. Te letter, written on December 30, 1863, stated: I am promised by all men who advocate [negotiation with the Union] that if fair terms are rejected it will tend greatly to strengthen and intensify the war feeling, and will rally all classes to a more cordial support of the government…. We would keep conspicuously before the world a disclaimer of our responsibility for the great slaughter of our race and convince the humblest of our citizens—who sometimes forget the actual situation—that the government is the tender of their lives and happiness and would not prolong their suferings unnecessarily.20

Governor Vance not only recognized that many common whites in North Carolina were unhappy with the Confederate government and opposed to remaining at war with the Union, but he also relayed this information to President Davis himself. It is notable that in his letter, Vance does not

19 John W. Ellis, “A Proclamation,” April 17, 1861, in William C. Harris, North Carolina and the Coming of the Civil War (Raleigh: Division of Archives and History, 1988), 53. For more information about common white North Carolinians’ reluctance to secede, see Cassandra McGuire, “Lost Daughters of the Confederacy: Common White Women in Civil War Era North Carolina” (undergraduate thesis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2012), 9-23. 20 Governor Zebulon Baird Vance to President Jefferson Davis (copy of the original), December 30, 1863, G.P. 172, Governors’ Papers – Zebulon Baird Vance. 22 Cassandra D. McGuire necessarily suggest that the Confederacy make peace with the Union. Instead, he only seems interested in generating propaganda for regaining the support of common white North Carolinians for the Confederate cause. While government ofcials and elites of North Carolina ofen claimed to be concerned with the physical well-being of the poor, it is clear that maintaining support for the war and the Confederate government among members of the lower classes was the ultimate goal behind most, if not all, attempts at aid. Confederate ofcials and their supporters expected the recipients of government aid to show their thanks by remaining loyal to the Confederate cause, creating a situation in which patriotic common white women were pitied while those who dared to be defant were scorned. In Civil War era North Carolina, common white women became major political actors on the home front, infuencing government ofcials’ actions and discourse through protests, petitions, and their power to convince their male relatives to desert. Why, then, are their stories largely marginalized in histories of the Confederate home front? Tis was certainly not due to their gender, as in the afermath of the Civil War, many Southern women were elevated to the status of heroines and lauded in such publications as Lucy London Anderson’s North Carolina Women of the Confederacy. Instead, common white women’s marginalization seems to have been based on their social and economic class. In Anderson’s book, the vast majority of praise was reserved for women of considerable social status and wealth who “joined the poorer women in … the felds,” serving as nurses in Confederate hospitals, participating in Soldiers’ Aid Societies, and working in canteens. Just one page of Anderson’s book addresses women who worked as wage laborers for the Confederate government, but the only positions mentioned are those of clerks and copyists, jobs usually reserved for middle- or upper-class women in need of work. Other contemporary works written about Confederate women, such as Matthew Page Andrews’s Te Women of the South in War Times, similarly focus on the experiences of upper- class women, portraying their activities as characteristic of Confederate womanhood while essentially ignoring the experiences of common whites. Tus, common white women, including those who grew food for the army and those who manufactured supplies in Confederate industries, are largely lef out of the constructed memory of the Confederacy and of Confederate

23 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

womanhood.21 One major reason why common white women have been studied less frequently and in less detail than wealthier women is that very few written records of common white women have survived. Tese women kept busy providing for their families, especially during the war years, so they lacked the leisure time to keep journals and memoirs. Furthermore, many common white women were illiterate. Te lack of records lef behind by them in Civil War era North Carolina does not explain why they were marginalized in memoirs written by their contemporaries, however. Literate elites would not have needed documents written by their common white neighbors in order to understand their lives, as they could have interviewed the poor or simply observed their behavior. Tey could have written about common whites at least as knowledgeably as about African Americans, who were the subject of many social commentaries written by elite whites during the Civil War period. “Lack of documentation” does not satisfactorily explain the omission of these women’s stories from contemporary accounts of the Confederate home front. Instead, it seems that common white women were deliberately lef out of the popular narrative of the Civil War and that the reason to obscure their version of events dates back to the collapse of the Confederacy.22

Constructing Confederate Memory: Te Myth of Confederate Womanhood By the fnal few months of the Civil War, most Southerners recognized the need to prepare for life afer defeat. Tere were many logistical concerns regarding reentering the Union, but a major ideological question also plagued many Southerners’ minds, namely how to justify the deaths of a quarter of a million Confederate soldiers and preserve the honor of the conquered South. Ideally, justifcation and honor would have come in the form of a military victory, with the Confederate States of America achieving international recognition of its independence. In the afermath

21 Lucy London Anderson, North Carolina Women of the Confederacy (Fayetteville, N.C.: Cumberland Printing Co., 1926), 14-15, 57, 102. See also Matthew Page Andrews, comp., The Women of the South in War Times (Baltimore: The Norman, Remington Co., 1924), for another example of post-war recollections of Confederate womanhood. 22 Edwards, 149-150. 24 Cassandra D. McGuire of the surrender at Appomattox and the Confederacy’s collapse, however, Southerners were forced to employ a new tactic: creating and perpetuating a version of Civil War history that would cast the Confederacy’s actions, including secession, in a positive light. In the words of scholar Karen Cox, these Southerners “aspired to transform military defeat into a political and cultural victory” by rewriting history.23 Te birth of the “Lost Cause” ideology is one of the most well-known ways in which Confederate history was manipulated to portray the South honorably. Realizing the difculty of justifying slavery to future generations who would not experience the institution frsthand, and hoping to portray their motivations more favorably to outside observers, elite Southerners chose to emphasize the issue of states’ rights as the real reason for their break with the North. Furthermore, to combat the possibility of the South being remembered as a land of tyrannical whites abusing their black slaves, postbellum Southern white writers consistently portrayed the antebellum and wartime South as an idyllic setting where people of both races lived in harmony with one another and their agrarian landscape. Te genteel mannerisms, peaceful setting, and charming individuals of the South described in these memoirs contrasted sharply with the increasingly industrialized and depersonalized atmosphere of many Northern cities at that time, allowing elite Southerners to claim cultural superiority over the North.24 Te creation of the “Lost Cause” ideology was not the only result of the deliberate construction of Confederate memory by elite white Southerners. What I have termed the “Myth of Confederate Womanhood” arose as well. Te term “Confederate womanhood” has been used by various writers to refer to the qualities that women on the Southern home front were encouraged to develop, including the willingness to sacrifce their menfolk, possessions, and labor for the good of the Cause. Te “Myth” was born when postbellum Southern memoirists chose to focus their writings on women representing these qualities, creating the illusion that the Confederacy was free of female dissent. Tis choice was hardly surprising considering that even during the war, Confederate elites had sought to quell the discontent

23 Karen L. Cox, Dixie’s Daughters: The United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Preservation of Confederate Culture (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2003), 1. 24 Ibid., 1-2. 25 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

of common whites in order to unify the imagined white community of the South. Tis aim continued to guide many Southerners in the postbellum era, encouraging them to downplay the diversity of Southern whites and to refuse to acknowledge common white dissent during the war. Instead, in their postwar remembrances, Southern elites suggest that all of the region’s whites were united in their unyielding support for the Confederacy. Tis was certainly not true. As previously shown, many common white women were not willing to make sacrifces for the good of the Cause, as they were already on the brink of starvation. Instead, they undermined the Confederate government by encouraging desertion and organizing riots. Tese women did not ft into the “Myth of Confederate Womanhood,” nor did their activities promote the peaceful, idyllic Southern atmosphere claimed by the “Lost Cause” ideology. Because the experiences of these women in Civil War era North Carolina contradicted the narrative of the Confederate past that Southern elites wished to establish, their stories were largely lef out of the new histories being written by Southerners. Had stories of common white women rioting and voicing anti-Confederate sentiments become widespread, the notion of the South as a place of unifed adherence to the “Lost Cause” would have been jeopardized. Rarely, brief accounts of common white women’s activities during the war were included in postbellum publications. For instance, North Carolina historian Cornelia Phillips Spencer recalled seeing soldiers’ wives weeping afer receiving cotton cards from the state government, crying aloud to God to bless Governor Vance for helping to clothe their families in their time of need. Decades later, another North Carolinian, D. H. Hill, recalled how even those poor Confederate women who were near starvation refused to tolerate desertion, demanding that their husbands return to battle. Notably, in these stories, specifc names of women were not included. Tis brings into question the veracity of these stories, as they may be based upon hearsay, or they may be propaganda created to emphasize the devotion that the “Lost Cause” inspired among all classes. Regardless of whether the stories are true, they convey the dominant attitude held by Southern elites that common white women proved themselves worthy of commemoration only by willingly and openly supporting the Confederate government and

26 Cassandra D. McGuire the war efort despite their many hardships on the home front.25 Te realities of political dissent and anti-war sentiments among common white women on the Confederate home front posed a particular problem in the state of North Carolina. Because of North Carolinians’ hesitation to secede from the Union, they ofen had been accused of being less devoted to the Confederate cause than residents of the Deep South states. During the war, North Carolina newspaper editors had fought these allegations with editorials, insisting that the state had done plenty to prove its loyalty. An editorial in the October 19, 1863, issue of the Fayetteville Observer stated that North Carolina “has now in the feld more men than she can well spare, and in addition to this she has troops for home defense.... She is clothing and shoeing all her troops in the Confederate service.” Concluded the Observer, “It is impossible that such a State, or any considerable portion of her people, should be untrue to the Southern cause. Tey are true. Tey have been so from the frst.”26 Afer the war, North Carolinians found themselves in the even more difcult position of having to prove their honor to both Northerners and Southerners. Like the residents of the other former Confederate states, North Carolinians generally subscribed to the “Lost Cause” ideology, which showed the Confederacy in a less negative light to those living outside the former slave states. At the same time, North Carolina elites used their postbellum writings to emphasize the state’s contributions to the Confederacy and to justify the state’s relatively late secession. A prime example of such politically motivated postwar writing is Cornelia Phillips Spencer’s book, Te Last Ninety Days of the War in North-Carolina. Spencer emphasizes that many North Carolinians had been reluctant to secede from the Union, foreseeing the dire consequences that war would inevitably bring. North Carolina’s Unionist statesmen were largely unheeded by the “extremist,” pro-war enthusiasts from the Deep South states, but when Virginia and Tennessee joined South Carolina as members of the Confederacy following the bombardment of Fort Sumter, North Carolina chose Southern solidarity over isolation. “What was lef for

25 Cornelia Phillips Spencer, The Last Ninety Days of the War in North-Carolina (New York: Watchman Publishing Company, 1866), 20; Daniel Harvey Hill, “The Women of the Confederacy,” in Addresses at the Unveiling of the Memorial, 12. 26 Fayetteville Observer, October 19, 1863, 2:5. 27 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

her,” asks Spencer, “but to stand … in the South and with the South?”27 Even while justifying North Carolina’s secession to readers outside the former Confederacy, Spencer also tried to mend the state’s rif with the rest of the South. Although she admitted that North Carolina’s reluctance to go to war was undeniable, Spencer maintained that the state had provided as many resources and soldiers to the Confederate army as possible. She argued that there was an “implicit and entire surrender by the whole Southern people,” including North Carolinians, “of their dearest civil rights and liberties, of their lives and property into the hands of the Government, for the support of [the] war.” She was certainly including the white women of Civil War era North Carolina in this generalization, as elsewhere in her book she praises them for their “heroic” willingness to undergo food and clothing shortages, increased workloads, and numerous other hardships for the good of the Cause. Spencer places Confederate women on a pedestal, asking, “Who shall question the course of the women of the South in this war, or dare to undervalue their lofy heroism and fortitude, unsurpassed in story or in song?” As a well-informed observer of the North Carolina home front, Spencer surely would have witnessed or heard accounts of protest and anti-war feeling among the state’s common white women. However, she chose to ignore this reality of dissent when describing Confederate women. While her book briefy mentions the “Peace Party” that arose in the state during the last eighteen months of the war under the leadership of W. W. Holden, Spencer focuses on showing how Governor Vance worked to quash the movement. She also fails to mention how many common white women likely supported this movement for peace. Spencer’s omission is not particularly surprising, since just as dissenting common white women did not ft in well with the “Lost Cause” ideology throughout the South, their activities in North Carolina contradicted the image of the state that Spencer endeavored to portray. In her construction of the memory of North Carolina in the Civil War years, Spencer chose whose memory would be preserved and whose would be lost.28 Elite women’s interests were also at work in the shaping of Confederate memory. Immediately afer the war, many white women of the upper

27 Spencer, 14-17, 70, 105. 28 Ibid., 30, 49, 110, 123-127. 28 Cassandra D. McGuire classes became heavily involved in the preservation of the Confederate past. Tose who had previously participated in Soldiers’ Aid Societies and other female-led wartime volunteer initiatives were easily drawn to the post-war Ladies’ Memorial Associations (LMAs). Tese associations were established throughout the South as early as 1865 to protect and perpetuate the ideology of the “Lost Cause,” and they persisted until 1890 when elite white women began forming similar groups known as the “Daughters of the Confederacy.” Four years later, on September 10, 1894, these localized groups of “Daughters” came together to establish the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC), a national organization of Southern women committed to honoring their Confederate dead and to educating future generations about “Confederate culture” as they understood it.29 Notably, the white women who joined LMAs in the months and years immediately following Confederate defeat were motivated to do much more than preserving the past. Tey also needed to shape their present. In particular, elite young ladies who had come of age during this tumultuous era realized that the cultural role of the plantation mistress that they had been groomed for no longer existed in the absence of slave labor. Tey would need to redefne Southern womanhood in a way that applied to the “New South,” but they were determined to retain the values concerning race and class that had characterized the “Old South.” Ultimately, this need for a new ideal of Southern womanhood was merged with a desire to defend the “Lost Cause” and to idolize the antebellum South. Elite young women began using their written recollections of the war to venerate Southern culture and to shape a new motif, which historian Victoria Ott has aptly named “the Confederate belle.” Ott describes this notion of the “Confederate belle,” which she has observed in various forms in Southern diaries and memoirs, as a “self-sacrifcing daughter who exchanged ... frivolities ... for a life of war work and material hardships in the name of southern independence.”30 For many Southerners, this notion of the “Confederate belle” quickly became synonymous with their overall conception of “Confederate womanhood.” Te elite female membership of LMAs lauded Confederate women for “blend[ing] self-sacrifce with stamina and fortitude,” and they

29 Cox, 2, 10. 30 Victoria E. Ott, Confederate Daughters: Coming of Age during the Civil War (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2008), 135. 29 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

enthusiastically promoted these qualities to young women throughout the South. As the LMAs (and, eventually, the UDC) became progressively involved in determining the curriculum that would be taught in Southern schools, the “Myth of Confederate Womanhood”—the idea that all Confederate women were willing and self-sacrifcing supporters of the Confederate government and Southern independence—was increasingly passed on to future generations of Southerners.31 Just as the anti-Confederate sentiments entertained by many common white women precluded their commemoration within the ideology of the “Lost Cause,” their failure to comport themselves according to the values of Southern womanhood held dear by elite white women meant that common white women were largely incompatible with the “Myth of Confederate Womanhood.” A “Confederate belle” would never riot in the streets or encourage desertion from the army. Ultimately, the “Confederate belle” was a perfect inhabitant for the idealistic Old South created by the imagery of the “Lost Cause” ideology. Te “Lost Cause” and the “Myth of Confederate Womanhood” easily merged to dominate the realm of Confederate memory while excluding the memory of common white women. Undoubtedly, in the eyes of most white Southern writers, ofcials, and intellectuals during the postbellum years, most if not all of whom would have belonged to the former slaveholding class, these women’s dissent during the war was best forgotten.

Te North Carolina Women of the Confederacy Memorial Troughout the decades following the war, the “Myth of Confederate Womanhood” was cemented into Southern memory. Eventually, it came to be viewed as indubitable fact. Widespread subscription to the myth is refected in the speeches that were given at the 1914 unveiling of the North Carolina Women of the Confederacy Memorial. Te memorial depicts a grandmother reading to her young grandson about the heroic acts of his father during his service in the Confederate army. Bronze relief sculptures mounted on the sides of the statue’s pedestal reveal that the soldier died in battle, leaving his loving mother bereaved. While the young boy grasping his father’s sword symbolizes his inheritance of the Confederate past and of his father’s bravery, the true emphasis of this memorial is on the bravery

31 Cox, 26, 86. 30 Cassandra D. McGuire

of the female fgure, who sacrifced her son to the Confederate war efort.32 Daniel Harvey Hill, then president of North Carolina State University and the son of a Confederate general, gave a rousing speech at the memorial’s unveiling, recognizing the valor and dedication of North Carolina women during the Civil War. He cited their intolerance of deserters, their ability to meet new challenges as heads of households in their husbands’ absence (specifcally, managing slave labor on their plantations), their participation in various volunteer eforts to support the soldiers, and their willingness to sacrifce all for the Confederacy. Clearly, the women being praised were of the elite class, as common white women would not have had slaves to manage and would have needed to spend their time fnancially supporting their families rather than volunteering their labor.33 In his speech, Hill incorporated the words of the memorial’s late patron, Ashley Horne, to describe the idea which had underlain the memorial’s creation, that “the silent woman of the memorial will typify the uncomplaining women of the South.” If taken literally, this statement implies that the North Carolina Women of the Confederacy Memorial was commissioned to honor women who probably never existed, as even those women in North Carolina who ardently supported the Confederacy, such as Catherine Devereux Edmondston, frequently complained about the hardships that they faced. More likely, it is meant to refer to those women who selfessly supported the Confederate war efort even while undergoing extreme hardships on the home front. Tis interpretation, however, still excludes many North Carolina women, particularly those common white women who openly expressed political dissent toward Confederate policies during the war years. Tese women had struggled to survive in the wartime economy, and they had grown frustrated with the government’s failure to improve home front conditions. Because these women were unwilling to sufer silently, they were not included among the “Women of the Confederacy” being commemorated by this memorial.34 In the last speech given at the unveiling ceremony, North Carolina Governor Locke Craig made a strong assertion which, when viewed alongside the very real dissent practiced by many common white women

32 Locke Craig, “Address of Acceptance,” in Addresses at the Unveiling of the Memorial, 24. 33 Hill, 10-20. 34 Ibid., 10. See also Edmondston, Journal. 31 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

during the Civil War, reveals how well their story had been obscured in North Carolina by 1914. “Had the men and the women of the South been recreant,” declared Governor Craig, “had they shrunk from the sacrifce of war, their children today would be the disinherited heirs of the promise, a dishonored and degenerate people.” While previous writers and speakers had avoided addressing the anti-Confederate sentiments held by many North Carolinians, particularly among common white women, Governor Craig unequivocally denied the existence of dissent in the Confederacy. Furthermore, his statement emphasized the complete unacceptability of acknowledging Confederate dissenters when recounting the history of the Civil War era South, as it would jeopardize not only the memory of the Confederate dead but also the honor of the Confederates’ descendants. It is notable that, in 1914, many people who had experienced the Civil War years frsthand, albeit at a young age, would have been living. However, despite these living witnesses, the story of dissent among common white women during the war had already been obscured and largely forgotten.35 Te work of generations of elite Southerners had successfully instilled the “Myth of Confederate Womanhood” into the popular consciousness of the South. It was likely this myth that inspired Southern author Margaret Mitchell to pen her 1936 novel Gone with the Wind, presenting the nation with the epitome of Confederate female devotion in the character of Melanie Wilkes. Tis sustained manipulation of the Confederate past to emphasize and romanticize the experiences of elite white women has resulted in common white women’s voices being mostly lost from Civil War history. Ironically, their marginalization was largely engineered by fellow Southern women who were willing to sacrifce historical accuracy and to undermine the feelings and experiences of common whites in order to enhance their own class’s heritage.

Te Return of the Repressed One day in 1864, a woman named Franny Jordan and two of her female neighbors confronted a band of Confederate soldiers in Moore County, North Carolina. Te soldiers had taken Jordan’s teenaged son away from her, intending to force the young man to enlist. For Jordan, her duties as a

35 Craig, 25. 32 Cassandra D. McGuire mother far outweighed any obligation she might have to the Confederate government or its army, and so she pursued the soldiers, anxious to see what could be done to resolve the situation and to have her son returned to her. As she and her companions neared the Confederate troops, they were accosted for challenging military authority. Te soldiers then physically threatened one of the young women, aiming their guns at her and ripping her dress as she struggled to get away. But the women were able to fee before the situation became more violent.36 Tis story illustrates that the experiences of common white women on the North Carolina home front were anything but “common.” Tere are undoubtedly many such fascinating, if largely untold, stories about this group of dissenting women. Tere is still much lef to be learned about them, such as what they thought of their society and how they organized group actions like the Salisbury bread riot. Because common white women in Civil War era North Carolina have yet to be heavily researched, there are many possibilities for future study. One approach that could prove rewarding would be to research the specifc experiences of individual common white women. Tis would undoubtedly be challenging due to the dearth of records they lef behind, but any surviving historical documents could potentially be supplemented by oral histories collected from the women’s descendants. Although family anecdotes would be difcult if not impossible to verify, they would provide a better understanding of the personalities of these women, about whom historians know so little. Furthermore, by presenting detailed accounts of specifc common white women, including their names, backgrounds, and personality types, a historian might “create” memorable historical fgures within the broad, amorphous category of “common white women.” Just as plantation mistress Catherine Devereux Edmondston is ofen used by historians to represent elite female life in Civil War era North Carolina, common white women could have their own representatives, such as Franny Jordan. Te striking quality of Jordan’s story, recounted above,

36 Victoria E. Bynum, “Occupied at Home: Women Confront Confederate Forces in North Carolina’s Quaker Belt,” in Occupied Women: Gender, Military Occupation, and the American Civil War, ed. LeeAnn Whites and Alecia P. Long (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2009), 155. See also Victoria E. Bynum, The Long Shadow of the Civil War: Southern Dissent and its Legacies (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010), 37-38. 33 The UNC-Chapel Hill Journal of History

illustrates how efective such research could be in conveying the violence and insecurity of the home front experience. It is important that common white women continue to be remembered and studied, as their stories provide a valuable counter-narrative to the dominant description of life on the Confederate home front. Teir experiences reveal the severity of conditions and the unhappiness of residents within the allegedly idyllic Confederacy. Furthermore, the eforts that these women made to have their plight heard and to elicit aid was extraordinary, given the period in which they lived and the gender constraints of that time. As the memory of the Civil War grows distant and less personal, it might fnally be possible to separate reality from romance in the Civil War era and to consider those alternative forms of Confederate womanhood that have been repressed.

34