Tag: Civil War spies

Civil War spies
Activists, Civil War Women, Educators

Mary Stafford Anthony

• Maggie

Educator and Suffragist Mary Stafford Anthony was the youngest sister of the famous social reformer and feminist Susan B. Anthony. Often overshadowed by her older sibling, Mary was a suffragist and educator who served as the first female school principal in western New York. She played an active role in several social reform organizations, including the New York Women’s Suffrage Association. Image: Mary Stafford Anthony At about 25 years of age Early Years Mary Stafford Anthony was born April 2, 1827 to Daniel and Lucy Read Anthony in Battenville, New York. Her parents had different religious beliefs; he was a liberal Quaker abolitionist. Although Lucy was a Baptist in her younger years, the Anthony children were raised as Quakers. Anthony…

Read Article
Civil War Hospitals, Civil War Women

Civil War Hospitals in Washington DC

• Maggie

Caring for the Wounded in Our Nation’s Capital Federal General Hospitals The title of United States Army General Hospital applied to facilities where soldiers from any military unit, unlike Division or Corps Hospitals. Image: Harewood Hospital Washington DC From 1861 through 1865, General Hospitals treated more than one million soldiers with a mortality rate of only eight percent, the lowest ever recorded for military hospitals and better than many civilian facilities. Washington’s sixteen General Hospitals comprised nearly 30,000 beds. Harewood General Hospital In 1852 financier William Wilson Corcoran purchased 191 acres to use as a country estate east of the Seventh Street Turnpike and north of what is now McMillan Reservoir. In 1862 Harewood Hospital was built on Corcoran’s property…

Read Article
Civil War Nurses, Civil War Women

Mary Phinney

• Maggie

Civil War Nurse Also known as Mary Phinney von Olnhausen, Mary Phinney was the widow of a Prussian nobleman when she served as a Civil War nurse at the Mansion House Hospital in Alexandria, Virginia. Her journals, published as Adventures of an Army Nurse in Two Wars, give a glimpse into the life of a Union nurse. Early Years Mary Phinney was born February 3, 1818 in Lexington, Massachusetts to lawyer Elias Phinney and Catherine Barlett Phinney, the daughter of a doctor. Mary was well educated at several academies. Mary received an excellent education at the Lexington Academy and Smith’s Academy in Waltham, and she worked on the family farm. In 1849, Elias Phinney died and the family sold the…

Read Article
Civil War Women

Ann Annis and the Sinking Sultana

• Maggie

Survivor of the Worst U.S. Marine Disaster Late in April of 1865, the Mississippi River stood at flood stage. Four years of war had ruined many levees, and the foaming water was over the banks for miles. More people died in the sinking of the steamboat Sultana than on the Titanic 47 years later, yet the tragic story is rarely mentioned in history books. Newspaper reports covered the latest event in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln: John Wilkes Booth had been killed at a Virginia farm the previous day – April 26, 1865. Marriage and Family At the age of 24 Ann met a young sea captain by the name of James Laird. They were married on December 29,…

Read Article
Abolitionists, African Americans, Civil War Women, Famous Firsts

Black Women Before the Civil War

• Maggie

African American Women in Antebellum America Amid the harshness of slavery, American women of African descent managed to preserve the culture of their ancestry and articulate their struggles. Black female poets and writers emerged throughout the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. Many prominent free black women in the North were active in the Abolitionist Movement. Slave Women Enslaved women in every state of the antebellum Union undoubtedly considered escaping from bondage, but relatively few attempted it – often to avoid splitting up their families. Some bought their liberty with hard-earned money; others filed freedom suits and were declared free by the courts. Historian Deborah Gray White explains the life of slave women: “Black in a white society, slave in a…

Read Article
Civil War Cities, Civil War Women

Civil War New Orleans

• Maggie

Largest City in the Confederate States of America New Orleans and its vital port became a major source of armament, supplies, and income to the Confederate Army. Its location near the mouth of the Mississippi River made the city an important and early target of the Union Army, which occupied the city for much of the war. New Orleans provided several leading officers and generals, including P.G.T. Beauregard and Harry T. Hays. Civil War Comes to New Orleans Late in 1861, Union authorities decided to send a flotilla of ships up the Mississippi River from New Orleans to meet the General Ulysses S. Grant‘s Union Army which was driving down the Mississippi valley behind a spearhead of armored gunboats. In…

Read Article
Civil War Women, Generals Wives

Julia Dubose Toombs

• Maggie

Wife of Confederate General Robert Toombs Early Years Julia Ann Dubose was born May 15, 1813, in Lincoln County, Georgia. Her husband, Robert Toombs was born near Washington, Georgia, and the couple made their home in a stately mansion there for the rest of their lives. Robert was the first Secretary of State for the Confederate States of America and fought for the South as a general in the Civil War. Robert Toombs entered Franklin College at the University of Georgia in Athens when he was fourteen years old; he was expelled for bad behavior in 1827. He then enrolled at Union College in Schenectady, New York, where he graduated in 1828 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. The following…

Read Article
Civil War Art, Civil War Women

Hood’s Charge at Gaines’ Mill

• Maggie

Largest Charge of the Civil War: Gaines’ Mill Image: Desperate Valor by Dale Gallon Brigadier General John Bell Hood leads the 4th Texas Regiment at the Battle of Gaines Mill and achieves the first breakthrough in the Union line. McClellan Threatens Richmond In early April 1862, USA General George B. McClellan‘s Army of the Potomac landed at the tip of the Virginia Peninsula between the York and James Rivers. This force of more than 100,000 Union soldiers then fought its way up the Virginia peninsula. McClellan planned to capture the capital of the Confederacy and perhaps end the war. By mid-May they had reached the outskirts of Richmond. Lee in Command When CSA General Joseph E. Johnston was severely wounded…

Read Article
Civil War Women, Generals Wives

Susan Tarleton

• Maggie

Bride-To-Be of Stonewall Jackson of the West Susan Tarleton was born January 6, 1840 in Talladega County, Alabama. She was the daughter of a cotton farmer in Mobile, Alabama. She attended Barton Academy there and was accomplished in music and literature. Best Man and Best Woman Confederate General Patrick Cleburne served as Best Man at the wedding of his friend General William Hardee in Demopolis, Alabama on January 13, 1864. Susan Tarleton, the 24-year-old daughter of an Alabama planter, was the Maid of Honor for Hardee’s bride, Mary Foreman Lewis. There Cleburne met Susan and immediately fell in love with her. He received permission to visit her the following day, and then the two traveled with the wedding party to…

Read Article
Civil War Women, Gettysburg

Sherfy Farm

• Maggie

Farm on the Gettysburg Battlefield Joseph Sherfy purchased a fifty-acre farm along the Emmitsburg Road about a mile south of the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in 1842. At the time of the battle, the farm included the famous Peach Orchard to the south of Wheatfield Road as well as both Big and Little Round Tops and the Devil’s Den. Image: Photograph taken from the air above Cemetery Ridge, year unknown Sherfy Farm buildings (upper left) and the Peach Orchard (lower right) There were surely many peach orchards in America on July 2, 1863, but General Daniel Sickles’ troops defended these fields so valiantly that it will be forever known as The Peach Orchard. Sherfy Family Joseph and Mary Sherfy were…

Read Article