Category: Civil War Women

Civil War Women
Civil War Women, Generals Wives

Daniella Wheeler

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Wife of Confederate General Joseph Wheeler After the Battle of Chickamauga (September 1863) CSA General Joseph Wheeler and his troopers were sent into central Tennessee, where they destroyed railroads and at least 500 Union supply wagons. By October 9 Wheeler had safely crossed the Tennessee River at Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Daniella Jones Sherrod met Wheeler at her parents’ home, Caledonia Plantation, at nearby Courtland, and they began a courtship. Image: The Wheeler Family in 1896 Joseph and Daniella, front center With their four daughters and two sons Daniella Ellen Jones was born on August 20, 1841, daughter of Richard Jones and Lucy Early Jones, who was the daughter of Georgia Governor Peter Early. The Jones family moved from Georgia to…

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Authors, Civil War Women, Feminists

Elizabeth Oakes Smith

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Feminist Author and Women’s Rights Activist Elizabeth Oakes Smith (1806-1893) was a poet, novelist, editor, lecturer and women’s rights activist whose career spanned six decades. Today Smith is best known for her feminist writings, including “Woman and Her Needs,” a series of essays published in the New York Tribune between 1850 and 1851 that argued for women’s equal rights to political and economic opportunities, including the right to vote and access to higher education. Early Years Elizabeth Oakes Prince was born August 12, 1806, near North Yarmouth, Maine, to David and Sophia Blanchard Prince. After her father died at sea in 1808, her family lived with her maternal and paternal grandparents until her mother remarried and moved with her stepfather…

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Civil War Women, Famous Wives

Clara Stone Hay

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Wife of John Hay: President Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary On the shores of Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire, John and Clara Stone Hay sought refuge from public life, and in 1888 they began acquiring abandoned farms that would eventually total nearly 1000 acres. In 1889 John and Clara hired architect George F. Hammond who designed a summerhouse in the style of the time with gambrel roof and a long open porch. They named it The Fells, a British term for a rocky upland pasture, due to his Scottish ancestry. Image: The Fells Estate and Gardens Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire 84 acres and a 22-room Colonial Revival home Construction was completed in 1891, followed by a renovation in 1897. Clara Stone Hay had…

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Civil War Women, Famous Firsts, Feminists

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

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One of the First Feminists in the United States Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) was a social reformer, editor, writer and leading figure in the early women’s rights movement. Her Declaration of Sentiments, calling for a full spectrum of rights for women, was presented at the first Women’s Rights Convention in 1848. For many years thereafter Stanton was the architect and author of the movement’s most important strategies and documents. Image: Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1856, with daughter Harriot Elizabeth Cady was born on November 12, 1815, in Johnstown, New York. The daughter of a lawyer who made no secret of his preference for another son, she showed at an early age her desire to excel in intellectual and other ‘male’…

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Civil War Spies, Civil War Women

Kate Warne

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Union Spy and First Female Private Investigator Not much is known about Kate Warne prior to the day she walked into the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in 1856. Answering an ad in a local newspaper, Warne went to Pinkerton’s Chicago office and asked to see Allan Pinkerton about a job. There is still debate whether or not she intended to become a detective or a secretary. There were no women detectives until well after the Civil War. Pinkerton himself claimed that she demanded to become a detective. According to Pinkerton’s records, he was surprised to learn Kate was not looking for clerical work, but was actually answering an advertisement for detectives he had placed in a Chicago newspaper. Pinkerton said,…

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Civil War Women, Famous Firsts, Feminists

Lucretia Mott

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One of the First American Feminists Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton met at the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London, where the two discussed the need for a convention about women’s rights. Mott and Stanton then became the primary organizers of the Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York in July 1848 – the first women’s rights meeting ever held in the United States. Childhood and Early Years Lucretia Coffin was born on January 3, 1793, to Quaker parents in the seaport town of Nantucket, Massachusetts. She was the second child of seven by Thomas Coffin and Anna Folger Coffin. In 1804, the Coffins moved to Boston, where Thomas was an international trader with warehouses and wharves. He bought…

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Civil War Women, Famous Firsts, Feminists

Julia Ward Howe

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One of the First Feminists in the United States Julia Ward Howe, little known today except as author of The Battle Hymn of the Republic, was famous in her lifetime as a poet, essayist, lecturer, reformer and biographer. She worked to end slavery, helped to initiate the women’s movement in many states, and organized for international peace – all at a time, she noted, “when to do so was a thankless office, involving public ridicule and private avoidance.” Image: Portrait of Julia Ward Howe By John Elliott and William Henry Cotton Julia Ward was born in New York City on May 27, 1819, the fourth of seven children born to Samuel Ward and Julia Rush Cutler Ward. Her father was…

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Civil War Women, Feminists

Martha Wright

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Abolitionist and Women’s Rights Activist Martha Wright was a feminist and abolitionist in the Civil War Era, and sister of women’s rights leader Lucretia Mott. In July 1848, while Mott was visiting Martha’s home in Auburn, New York, the sisters met with Elizabeth Cady Stanton in nearby Seneca Falls to discuss the need for greater rights for women. Within a few weeks, they held the First Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls. Image: Public relations portrait of Wright that was used in the book, History of Woman Suffrage, by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Volume I, published in 1881. Martha Coffin was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on December 25, 1806, the youngest of eight children born to Quakers…

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Civil War Women, Women in Religion

Henriette Delille

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Black History Month: Creole Nun Henriette DeLille (1813–1862) founded the Catholic order of the Sisters of the Holy Family, made up of free women of color in New Orleans. The order provided nursing care and a home for orphans, later establishing schools as well. In 1989 the order formally opened its cause with the Vatican in the canonization of Henriette DeLille. Henriette Delille was born in 1812 in New Orleans, Louisiana, into a life of privilege. Her father, Jean-Baptiste (de Lille) Lille Sarpy (French/Italian) was born in 1762 in France; her mother, Marie-Josèphe Díaz, a free quadroon Creole of color of French, Spanish and African ancestry, was born in New Orleans. Delille’s parents were Catholic, as were most Creoles and…

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African Americans, Civil War Women, Educators

Edmonia Highgate

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Teacher of Former Slaves in the South Teaching in the South during the Reconstruction era (1865-1877) took great courage. The women who traveled there to teach often feared for their lives but were determined to empower the freed slaves through literacy. Image: The Misses Cooke’s school room, Freedman’s Bureau, Richmond, Va. In Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 1866 Nov. 17, Library of Congress Edmonia Highgate, the daughter of freed slaves, was born in Syracuse, New York, in 1844. She graduated from high school with honors, taught for a year in Montrose, Pennsylvania, and then became principal of a black school in Binghamton, New York. She was one of the many upstate New Yorkers who responded to the appeal to aid those…

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