Category: Civil War Women

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…

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…

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…

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…

Wife of Union General Henry Warner Slocum Henry Warner Slocum was born on September 24, 1827, in Delphi Falls, New York. He was the sixth child of eleven born to Matthew Barnard Slocum and Mary Ostrander Slocum. Image: General Henry Slocum Along with the other children in the area, Henry attended the Delphi Public School. In addition to school, Henry helped out in his father’s store. To raise extra money, he raised sheep. Henry attended Cazenovia Seminary in nearby Madison County, and at age 16 received a Public School Teacher’s Certificate. He worked as a teacher in the winter of 1847-48 in a one-room school in the hamlet of New Woodstock. In 1848, Henry Slocum received an appointment to the…

Wife of Union General Benjamin Franklin Butler Sarah Jones Hildreth was born on August 17, 1816, in Dracut, Massachusetts, the daughter of Dolly Jones and Dr. Israel Hildreth. Having shown considerable talent in dramatics, she was sent to Boston at the age of sixteen for formal training, after which she acted onstage to great acclaim in Boston, New York, Charleston, South Carolina and Cincinnati, Ohio. Benjamin Franklin Butler was born on November 5, 1818, in Deerfield, New Hampshire, the son of Captain John Butler, who served under Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812 (during the Battle of New Orleans). After the death of his father in 1828, Benjamin moved to Lowell, Massachusetts, with his mother, Charlotte (Ellison) Butler, where…

Wife of Union General Daniel Sickles Born in New York City in 1836, Teresa Da Ponte Bagioli was the daughter of the wealthy and well-known Italian singing teacher Antonio Bagioli and his wife, Maria Cooke. During her youth, Teresa sometimes lived and studied in the household of her grandfather, Lorenzo Da Ponte, the noted music teacher who had worked as Mozart’s librettist on such masterpieces as The Marriage of Figaro. An exceptionally bright child, Teresa spoke five languages by the time she was a young adult. Daniel Edgar Sickles was born October 20, 1819, in New York City to Susan Marsh Sickles and George Garrett Sickles, a patent lawyer and politician. (Sickles’ year of birth is sometimes given as 1825….