Category: Civil War Women

Wife of Confederate General Lafayette McLaws Emily Allison Taylor was born in Kentucky in 1824, the “pretty, witty, lively, sweet, and sincere” daughter of John and Elizabeth Lee Taylor. Emily was the niece of President Zachary Taylor, and cousin of future Confederates Richard Taylor and Jefferson Davis. Image: General Lafayette McLaws Lafayette McLaws was born on January 15, 1821, in Augusta, Georgia, but had ties to South Carolina through his mother. He first met future Confederate General James Longstreet at school in Augusta. McLaws spent a year at the University of Virginia before receiving his appointment to West Point. He graduated in 1842, ranking 48th out of 56 cadets; Longstreet was 40th. Having served in the Indian Territory, Mississippi, Louisiana,…

Wife of Union General Romeyn Beck Ayres Emily Gerry Dearborn was born May 8, 1829, in Bangor, Maine; daughter of Greenlief and Pamela Gilman Dearborn. Romeyn Beck Ayres was born on December 20, 1825, at East Creek, New York, along the Mohawk River in upstate New York. He was the son of a small town doctor who urged all of his sons into professional careers. Image: Romeyn Beck Ayres Romeyn was singled out for a military career and was tutored rigorously in Latin by his father. He entered West Point, where he was an indifferent scholar, graduating 22nd out of the 38 members of the class of 1847, which included future Confederate Generals A.P. Hill, George Steuart and Henry Heth,…

Wife of Confederate General Joseph Brevard Kershaw Image: General Joseph Kershaw Lucretia Ann Douglas was born on August 27, 1825, the daughter of James and Mary Martin Douglas of Camden, South Carolina. Joseph Brevard Kershaw was born on January 5, 1822, son of John and Harriet DuBose Kershaw, also of Camden. His maternal grandfather, also named Joseph Kershaw, served on Francis Marion’s staff during the Revolutionary War. His father, who died when he was seven years of age, was several times mayor of Camden, a Judge, a Legislator, and a member of Congress. Kershaw attended first a school in Camden; he was sent at the age of fifteen to the Cokesbury Conference school, in Abbeville District. Leaving school, after a…

Wife of Union General John Curtis Caldwell Martha Helen Foster was born on August 12, 1838, the daughter of Jeremiah Foster of East Machias, Maine. John Curtis Caldwell was born in Lowell, Vermont, on April 17, 1833, the son of George M. and Elizabeth Curtis Caldwell. Lowell was some fifteen miles south of the Canadian border in northern Vermont. He graduated from Amherst College in 1855 and moved to Maine, where he was the principal of the Washington Academy in East Machias. He continued in this position for about five years until war broke out in 1861. While there, he met Martha Foster. Image: General John Caldwell Martha Helen Foster married John C. Caldwell on May 15, 1857, at Machiasport,…

Daughter of General Butler and Wife of General Ames Blanche Butler Ames (1847–1939) was the wife of Union general Adelbert Ames, who later became Senator and Governor of Mississippi during Reconstruction. Her mother Sarah Hildreth was a Shakespearean actress before marrying Blanche’s father, Benjamin F. Butler, a Massachussetts politician and a controversial Union general during the Civil War. Image: Portrait of Blanche from Butler’s Book by her father, General Benjamin F. Butler Blanche Butler was born on March 2, 1847, in Lowell, Massachusetts. She attended local public schools until age thirteen, when she was sent to be educated at the Academy of the Visitation in Washington, DC, where she described the sectional tension affecting northern and southern students on the…

Wife of Union Admiral David Dixon Porter In February 1829, while visiting Commodore Daniel Patterson’s home in Washington, Porter met the commodore’s daughter, George Ann ‘Georgy’ Patterson; but it would be another ten years before Porter would be able to marry her. The low pay of a midshipman was not enough to convince her father to release her into his care. Image: David Dixon Porter George Ann ‘Georgy’ Patterson was born in 1819 in New Orleans, Louisiana, daughter of Commodore Daniel Todd George Ann Pollock Patterson. David Dixon Porter was born at Chester, Pennsylvania, June 8, 1813, the son of Commodore David and Evelina Anderson Porter. His father was a naval hero of the War of 1812. He was brother…

Wife of Union General Philippe Regis de Trobriand Mary Mason Jones was born in 1819, the daughter of Isaac and Mary Jones. Her father was the president of the Chemical Bank, and her mother was American novelist Edith Wharton’s great-aunt, and the model for the high and mighty Mrs. Mingott in the Wharton’s novel, The Age of Innocence. Image: The Countess de Trobriand Frederick MacMonnies, Artist Oil on canvas, 1901 This portrait depicts the countess in regal splendor, sitting on a golden throne with an ermine wrap at her side. The egret feather in her hair shows that she has been presented at the court of Napoleon III. According to Jones family legend, MacMonnies painted this portrait in Paris, working…

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…