Civil War Women

Emma Sansom

• Maggie

Confederate Heroine from Alabama Emma Sansom was living on her family’s farm near Gadsden, Alabama in the spring of 1863. the Sansom household consisted of Emma’s widowed mother, sister Jennie, 24, brother Rufus, 22, recuperating from wounds he had received in battle, and Emma, 15. She was described as an attractive young girl, with blue eyes and auburn hair. Image: To the Lost Ford By John Paul Strain Emma Sansom and General Forrest In April 1863, Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his cavalrymen entered northern Alabama to pursue Union General Abel Streight, who was on a raid to destroy the Confederate railroad near Chattanooga, the only source of supply and communications to General Braxton Bragg’s army in middle Tennessee….

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African Americans, Civil War Women

Solomon Northup

• Maggie

Solomon Northup was a free Black who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. I will allow him to tell parts of the story from his memoir that was published in 1853. Though the language – his or the editor’s – is stilted, it was the writing style of the times. Please excuse my cobbling together quotes that aren’t necessarily in succession, because I don’t want to interrupt the flow of the story. Solomon was born in 1808 in Minerva, New York. His father had been a slave, but had been freed upon the death of his master. As a boy, Solomon worked on his father’s farm, and spent his free time reading and learning to play the violin. In 1829,…

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Civil War Spies, Civil War Women

Lottie and Ginnie Moon: Confederate Spies

• Maggie

Sisters Who Spied for the Confederacy Image: Lottie and Ginnie Moon Born Charlotte and Virginia, the Moon sisters were from Virginia, the daughters of a doctor. In the 1830s, the family moved to Oxford, Ohio, in the southwestern corner of the state. One of Lottie’s suitors was a young man from nearby Indiana named Ambrose Burnside, and sources say that she jilted him at the altar. She finally settled down with Jim Clark, who soon became a judge. After Dr. Moon’s death, Mrs. Moon enrolled Ginnie in the Oxford Female College and moved to Memphis. One of the teachers criticized Ginnie for her Confederate leanings. She dropped out of school and went to live with Lottie and Jim, who were…

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African Americans, Civil War Women, Feminists

Sojourner Truth and The Civil War

• Maggie

African American Abolitionist and Women’s Rights Activist Sojourner Truth was a nationally known feminist and social reformer. During the Civil War, she helped recruit black soldiers for the Union Army. After the war, she tried to secure land grants from the federal government for former slaves, a project she pursued for seven years, meeting with President Ulysses S. Grant to discuss the subject. Image: Sojourner Truth Monument Florence, Massachusetts Truth lived in Florence (a village of Northampton) from 1843-1857. She came to Florence to join the Northampton Association of Education and Industry, a utopian community dedicated to equality and justice. After the Association disbanded, she remained in Florence, bought her first home, dictated her autobiography to Olive Gilbert and became…

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African Americans, Civil War Women

Lily Ann Granderson

• Maggie

Union troops occupied Natchez, Mississippi in the summer of 1863. Soon thereafter, missionaries from the northern states came to establish schools for the slaves. They were surprised to learn that one such school already existed and had been educating slaves for years. The teacher was Lily Ann Granderson, and she was a slave as well. Knowledge of her background is far from complete. Lily Ann was born a slave in Virginia in 1816. Her grandmother was a free woman of Native American heritage. After her death, Lily’s mother was enslaved at the age of three. At some point, Lily was moved to Kentucky. She worked as a house slave, and her master’s children taught her to read and write. After…

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Civil War Women, Female Soldiers

Kady Brownell

• Maggie

Female Soldier from Rhode Island Kady Southwell was born in 1842 in an army camp on the coast of Africa, where her French mother had traveled to watch her Scottish father on maneuvers. Accounts of her life have always been in dispute, but it is known that her mother died shortly after her birth. Good friends of the family, the McKenzies, took Kady into their home and soon moved to Providence, Rhode Island. There is no record that they ever adopted her. Kady did not appear in any census records until 1860. At that time, she was living with the Rodman family while she worked as a weaver in the mills. Working in the textile mills was a hard and…

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Civil War Women, Diaries and Letters

Cornelia McDonald

• Maggie

Civil War Diarist of Winchester, Virginia Cornelia McDonald (1822–1909) was the author of A Diary with Reminiscences of the War and Refugee Life in the Shenandoah Valley, 1860-1865 in which she records her experiences during the Civil War as a woman living in Winchester, Virginia. The town changed hands numerous times during the war, and life there was uncertain at best. McDonald was among the group of women who became known as the “Devil Diarists of Winchester.” Cornelia Peake was born in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1822, the youngest child of a doctor. Her father’s debts forced him to move his large family several times during Cornelia’s childhood. The family and their slaves ended up in Palmyra, Missouri, where several family…

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female Confederate soldier Malinda Blalock
Civil War Women, Female Soldiers

Malinda Blalock

• Maggie

Female Soldier and Bushwhacker in the Civil War Union sympathizers Malinda Blalock and her husband Keith enlisted in the Confederate army near their home in the mountains of western North Carolina, planning to desert and join the Union army. In the meantime, Malinda was wounded. The couple deserted and returned home where they became the most feared bushwhackers in the mountains, feared by secessionists and Unionists alike. Sarah Malinda Pritchard was born in 1842 in the Appalachian Mountains of western North Carolina. She met William McKesson Blalock (nicknamed Keith) in a one-room school they both attended. Their marriage in 1856 was a shock to their neighbors, because their families had been feuding for 150 years. The couple resided on Grandfather…

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Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women

Janie Smith

• Maggie

Civilian at the Battle of Averasboro Janie Smith lived on a huge plantation near Averasboro, North Carolina. She was eighteen years old when General William Tecumseh Sherman plowed through the Carolinas with his scorched-earth policy, hoping to end the civil war that had dragged on for four long years. Janie lived with her parents and her nine brothers and two unmarried sisters; eight of her brothers were serving in the Confederate Army. Following the Battle of Averasboro, North Carolina – March 15 and 16, 1865 – eighteen-year-old Janie Smith (1846-1882) wrote an insightful letter on scraps of wallpaper (due to the paper shortage during the war) about the battle and her family’s experiences to her friend Janie Robeson in Bladen…

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Elizabeth Van Lew
Civil War Spies, Civil War Women

Elizabeth Van Lew

• Maggie

Union Spy in the Confederate Capital Elizabeth Van Lew, a well-to-do resident of Richmond, Virginia, recruited and operated an extensive network of spies who gathered intelligence for the Union in the shadow of the Confederate White House. Van Lew was also an Angel of Mercy for the Union soldiers who were being held at Libby Prison near her home. Her gifts of food and clothing meant the difference between life and death for many inmates there. Early Years Elizabeth Van Lew was born October 25, 1818 in Richmond, Virginia, the eldest daughter of Eliza Baker Van Lew and John Van Lew, a prominent Virginia businessman who owned a prosperous hardware business and several slaves. Elizabeth attended a Quaker school in…

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