Civil War Women, Generals Wives

Mary Wadsworth

• Maggie

Wife of Union General James Samuel Wadsworth Mary Craig Wharton was born on August 24, 1814, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. James Samuel Wadsworth was born on October 30, 1807, to wealthy parents, James and Naomi Wolcott Wadsworth, at Geneseo, the seat of Livingston County, New York. The senior James Wadsworth and his brother William were among the earliest settlers in Western New York. They traveled by raft and ox cart from their home near Hartford, Connecticut, arriving in the wilderness that was to become Geneseo in June of 1790. In time, James Sr. became the owner of one of the largest portfolios of cultivated land in the state. Young James Wadsworth was groomed to fulfill the responsibilities he would inherit. He…

Read Article
Famous Wives

Katharine Moffatt Whipple

• Maggie

Wife of Declaration Signer William Whipple Katharine Moffat was born in 1734 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the daughter of John Moffat, who came to America as a ship captain engaged in the timber trade. About 1724, John Moffat had married a young woman of means named Katharine Cutt, and through trade and land speculation, they became one of New Hampshire’s wealthiest couples. Of their five children, four survived – three daughters and one son. William Whipple was born January 14, 1730, in Kittery, Maine, son of Captain William and Mary Cutt Whipple. His mother was the daughter of Robert Cutts, a wealthy and distinguished ship-builder, who established himself at Kittery, and at his death left her a handsome fortune. Young…

Read Article
Civil War Women, Generals Wives

Pauline Mosby

• Maggie

Wife of Confederate General John Singleton Mosby Pauline Clarke was born in Kentucky on March 30, 1837. Her father, Beverly J. Clarke, was an active attorney and a former US Congressman and diplomat from Franklin, Kentucky. John Singleton Mosby was born on December 6, 1833, at his maternal grandfather’s home, Edgemont, in Powhatan County, Virginia. Raised in Nelson and then Albemarle counties, Virginia, little is known of his childhood, other than that he was a frail, sickly child – so frail, in fact, that he was relieved of most chores as a child. Like many in the Virginia middle class, his family owned slaves, one (Aaron Burton) was very close to him. Although an antsy student, he loved history. Because…

Read Article
Famous Wives

Hannah Floyd

• Maggie

Wife of Declaration Signer William Floyd Image: William Floyd House Mastic Beach, Long Island Now part of Fire Island National Park Hannah Jones was born in February 1739, the daughter of William Jones of Southampton, Long Island, Island, New York. William Floyd was born on December 17, 1734, the son of Nicoll and Tabitha Floyd, on their prosperous plantation at Mastic, Long Island, New York. His father, a rich and respectable landholder of Welsh ancestry, kept the children busy with chores. As a result, William’s education consisted only of informal instruction at home. In 1754, William’s father and mother died within 2 months of each other, and he inherited the Floyd estate on Long Island, along with the responsibility of…

Read Article
Civil War Women, Generals Wives

Harriet Heth

• Maggie

Wife of Confederate Major General Henry Heth Harriet Cary Selden was born on October 13, 1834, in Richmond, Virginia. Henry Heth (pronounced Heeth) was born on December 16, 1825, at Black Heath in Chesterfield County, Virginia. He was the son of Margaret L. Pickett and Navy Captain John Heth, a United States Navy officer in the War of 1812. He was the cousin of General George Pickett. Everyone called young Heth, “Harry,” the name also preferred by his grandfather, American Revolutionary War Colonel, also named Henry Heth, who had established the family in the coal business in the Virginia Colony after emigrating from England in 1759. Image: General Henry Heth Heth refused an appointment to the Naval Academy at Annapolis…

Read Article
Famous Wives

Elizabeth Corbin Braxton

• Maggie

Wife of Declaration Signer Carter Braxton Carter Braxton Elizabeth Tayloe Corbin was born in 1747 at her family plantation, Middlesex, in King William County, Virginia. She was the eldest daughter of a British colonel who was the Receiver of Customs in Virginia for the King. Carter Braxton was born on September 10, 1736, into a wealthy family at Newington, a tobacco plantation in King and Queen County, Virginia. He was the son of George Braxton, a wealthy planter and merchant. His mother was the daughter of Robert “King” Carter, a prominent landowner and politician, who was for some time a member and the president of the King’s Council. Carter was liberally educated at the College of William and Mary and,…

Read Article
Civil War Women, Generals Wives

Mary Breckinridge

• Maggie

Wife of General John C. Breckinridge Mary Cyrene Burch was born in 1826, the daughter of Clifton Rhodes Burch and Alethia Viley Burch. Born at Cabell’s Dale, the family estate near Lexington, Kentucky, on January 16, 1821, John Cabell Breckinridge was named for his father and grandfather. His grandfather, the first John Breckinridge was a U.S. senator and served as attorney general for President Thomas Jefferson. His father, Joseph Cabell Breckinridge, a rising young politician, died at the state capital at the age of thirty-five. Image: Husband of Mary Breckinridge Vice President John Cabell Breckinridge Left without resources, John’s mother, Mary Clay Smith Breckinridge, took her children back to Cabell’s Dale to live with their paternal grandmother, known affectionately as…

Read Article
Famous Wives

Laura Collins Wolcott

• Maggie

Wife of Declaration Signer Oliver Wolcott Laura Collins Wolcott Ralph Earl, Artist Laura Collins was born on January 1, 1731, the daughter of Captain Daniel and Lois Cornwall Collins of Guilford, Connecticut. She was descended from the first settlers, and brought up in the manner of Connecticut girls of well-to-do families of that day. The National Cyclopedia of American Biography says of her: She was a woman of almost masculine strength of mind, energetic and thrifty; and while Governor Wolcott was away from home, attended to the management of their farm, educated their younger children, and made it possible for her husband to devote his energies to his country. Oliver Wolcott was born on November 20, 1726, at South Windsor,…

Read Article
Civil War Women, Generals Wives

Elizabeth Halleck

• Maggie

Wife of Union General Henry Wager Halleck Elizaeth Hamilton Halleck was a natural subject for Matthew Brady’s camera and for E. & H. T. Anthony’s series of cartes de visite devoted to the new celebrities created by the early years of the Civil War. Elizabeth Hamilton was born February 9, 1835 in Westernville, New York. She was the daughter of Colonel John Church Hamilton, and granddaughter of Alexander Hamilton. While the death of Alexander Hamilton, in the historic duel with Aaron Burr, left the family in dire financial circumstances, Elizabeth’s father was, nevertheless, able to graduate from Columbia College in 1809. Henry Wager Halleck was born on January 16, 1815, in Westernville, New York, to Joseph Halleck and Catherine Wager…

Read Article
Famous Wives

Elizabeth Lynch

• Maggie

Founding Father Thomas Lynch Jr. Wife of Declaration Signer Thomas Lynch Jr. Elizabeth Shubrick was born on February 5, 1749, in South Carolina. She would become the childhood sweetheart of Thomas Lynch, Jr., who was born on August 5, 1749, at Hopsewee Plantation on the North Santee River, Prince George’s Parish, Winyah, South Carolina. Jonack Lynch, the great-grandfather of Lynch, Jr., emigrated from Ireland and worked a small farm in the low country along the Atlantic coast, but had only modest financial success. At his death, he left his son Thomas his property and a little money, which was used to buy land and cultivate rice, which was to bring him a fortune. Hopsewee Plantation was built by the Lynch…

Read Article