Frances Thomas

Wife of Union General George Thomas Frances Lucretia Kellogg was born at Troy, New York, on January 25, 1821. Frances’ mother, Abigail Paine Kellogg, had been a widow for many years. Her father Warren Kellogg was a prosperous hardware and grocery merchant. Image: General George Thomas George Henry Thomas was born July 31, 1816, on a farm called Thomaston in Southampton County, Virginia, five miles from the North Carolina line. He was one of nine children born to John and Elizabeth Rochelle Thomas. There were six girls and three boys; George was the youngest son. The family led an upper-class plantation lifestyle. By 1829, they owned 685 acres and 24 slaves. John Thomas died in a farm accident April 20,…

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Adele Douglas

Wife of Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas Adele Cutts was a famous Washington beauty who became the loyal and valuable second wife of senator Stephen A. Douglas. She was at his side during the debates with Abraham Lincoln in Illinois and through the presidential campaign that followed in 1860. Rose Adele Cutts was born in Washington, DC, in December 1835. Her father, James Madison Cutts, was a nephew of First Lady Dolley Madison. Her mother, Eleanora Elizabeth O’Neale, came from a prominent Catholic family in Maryland, and was the sister of Rose O’Neal Greenhow, who was later convicted of spying for the Confederacy. Dolley Madison was very fond of James and Eleanora and was often seen in Washington, DC, proudly…

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Varina Davis

First Lady of the Confederate States of America Varina Davis was the wife of Confederate President Jefferson Davis during the Civil War, and she lived at the Confederate White House in Richmond, Virginia during his term. After the war she became a writer, completing her husband’s memoir, and writing articles and eventually a regular column for Joseph Pulitzer’s newspaper, the New York World. Image: Varina Davis in 1849 By John Wood Dodge Varina Howell was born on May 7, 1826, at The Briars near Natchez, Mississippi, where her parents, William Burr Howell and Margaret L. Kempe, were visiting relatives. Her father, who fought in the War of 1812, settled in Natchez and married Kempe, a Virginia native whose father was…

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Eliza Chase

Wife of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Salmon P. Chase Salmon P. Chase: Lincoln’s Treasury Secretary And husband of Eliza Chase Henry Ulke, Artist Salmon Portland Chase was born on January 13, 1808, in Cornish, New Hampshire. He was the ninth of eleven children born to Ithmar Chase and Janet Ralston Chase. His father died when Salmon was nine years old, leaving his widow a small amount of property and ten surviving children. Chase’s education began in 1816 in Keene, New Hampshire, than at a better school in Windsor, Vermont. His uncle, Philander Chase, an Episcopal Bishop, took Salmon to the woods of Ohio. Young Chase attended the bishop’s school at Worthington, near Columbus. Chase had no love for…

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Fanny Chamberlain

Wife of Brigadier General Joshua Chamberlain Frances Caroline Adams was born on August 12, 1825, in a suburb of Boston, Massachusetts. Her parents were rather old at the time of her birth. Fanny, as she was called, was passed around to different family members, finally living with her cousin Reverend George Adams in Brunswick, Maine. Adams was the pastor of the First Parish Congregationalist Church, and he often ministered to the students of nearby Bowdoin College, where he was a member ofthe Board of Overseers. Image: Joshua and Fanny Dale Gallon, Artist Fanny grew up in this strictly religious home,and received a good education. She was an intelligent and artistic girl with a talent for music and singing. She made…

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Harriet Tubman

Conductor on the Underground Railroad Harriet Tubman was an African American abolitionist, humanitarian and Union spy during the Civil War. After escaping from slavery, she made thirteen missions back to the land of her servitude to rescue scores of slaves, using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the Underground Railroad. Image: Painting by Paul Collins: Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad She was born Araminta Ross around 1820 the fifth of nine children born to slave parents, Harriet (“Rit”) Green and Benjamin Ross, in Dorchester County on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. As with many slaves in the United States, neither the exact year nor place of her birth was recorded, and historians differ as to the best…

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Mary Todd Lincoln

First Lady of the United States 1861-1865 Mary Todd Lincoln supported her husband throughout his presidency, and witnessed his fatal shooting at nearly point blank range at Ford’s Theater on April 14, 1865. Mary’s life was difficult after her husband was assassinated; she suffered from depression and mental anguish, which led to her being hospitalized for a time. Image: Mary Todd Lincoln in 1846 Mary Todd was born on December 13, 1818, in Lexington, Kentucky, the fourth of seven children born to banker Robert Smith Todd and Elizabeth Parker Todd. Robert Todd provided his children from two marriages with social standing and material advantages. When Mary was seven, her mother died. Mary’s father remarried to Elizabeth Humphreys in 1826. This…

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Sarah Rosetta Wakeman

Woman Soldier in the Civil War Sarah Rosetta Wakeman disguised herself as a man in order to fight for the Union in the Civil War. The letters she wrote home were preserved by her family, but were not made public for nearly a century because they were stored in the attic of one of her relatives. Wakeman, most often referred to as Rosetta, was born on January 16, 1843, in Afton, New York, to Harvey Anable and Emily Wakeman. She worked hard on her father’s dairy farm to help support her family, and later worked as a domestic. Her father served as town constable, but was deeply in debt. At the age of 19, Rosetta left home and traveled to…

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Clara Pope

Wife of Union General John Pope John Pope was a career United States Army officer and Union general in the American Civil War with a reputation for outspokenness and arrogance. He had a brief but successful career in the Western Theater, but he is best known for his defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas) in the East. After decades of blaming General Fitz John Porter, an 1879 Board of Inquiry concluded that Pope himself bore most of the responsibility for the loss of that battle. Image: Major General John Pope Born on March 16, 1822, in Louisville, Kentucky, John Pope was raised in Kaskaskia, Illinois, located on the Mississippi River. His father, Nathaniel Pope was the…

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Olivia Hooker

Wife of Union General Joseph Hooker Olivia Augusta Groesbeck was born in 1825 in Cincinnati, Ohio. She was a member of the prominent Groesbeck family, the daughter of John and Mary Groesbeck, and the sister of U.S. Congressman William Slocum Groesbeck. Joseph Hooker was born on November 13, 1814, the son of a store owner in Hadley, Massachusetts. He grew up on the banks of the Connecticut River. His initial schooling was at the local Hopkins Academy. Image: General Joseph Hooker Hooker’s mother and a schoolteacher brought Joe to the attention of George Grennell, then a member of the House of Representatives. Grennell backed the youth in his quest to enter the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where he…

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