When the white men of the South marched off to war, they left behind their wives and children. Soon, Confederate women in the border states confronted an enemy army of occupation. Later, when Union armies invaded the Confederacy, southern women — both black and white — faced an even more dangerous army of conquest and destruction.

Cornelia Peake McDonald

Journal

Cornelia Peake McDonald was the wife of an affluent lawyer in Winchester, Virginia, a town occupied by Union forces. She had nine children, born between 1848 and 1861.

[May 1863] 22nd … To day I received another intimation that my house would be wanted for a [Union] regimental hospital. I feel a sickening despair when I think of what will be my condition if they do take it. …

Major Butterworth … told me that he was a quarter master, and that he had been sent to inform me that I must give up the house, as they must have it for a hospital. … I lost no time in seeking [General] Milroy’s presence. … “Gen. Milroy,” said I. He looked around impatiently. “They have come to take my house from me.” … [He replied,] “Why should you expect me to shelter you and your family, you who are a rebel, and whose husband and family are in arms against the best government the world ever saw?” … “But Gen. Milroy, you are commandant here … and you can suffer me to remain in mine, where at least I can have a shelter for my sick children.” … At last he raised his head and looked in my face. “You can stay but I allow it at the risk of my commission.”

Source: A Woman’s Civil War, ed. Minrose C. Gwin (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992), 101, 150–153.

Judith White Brockenbrough McGuire

Diary

Judith White Brockenbrough McGuire, of Alexandria, Virginia, spent most of the war as a refugee in Richmond.

June 11, 1865

These particulars … I have [heard] from our nephew, J. P. [in occupied central Virginia. He reports that] … the Northern officers seemed disposed to be courteous to the ladies, in the little intercourse which they had with them. General Ferrera, who commanded the negro troops, was humane, in having a coffin made for a young Confederate officer. … The surgeons, too, assisted in attending to the Confederate wounded. An officer one morning sent for Mrs. N. [to return an item stolen by Union soldiers]. … She thanked him for his kindness. He seemed moved and said, “Mrs. N., I will do what I can for you, for I cannot be too thankful that my wife is not in an invaded country.”

Source: Rod Gragg, The Illustrated Confederate Reader (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), 88–89.

Lieutenant Colonel Samuel J. Nasmith

Report, July 1, 1863

In June 1863, Confederate raiders attacked and burned twenty Union-run cotton plantations near Goodrich’s Landing, Louisiana, along the Mississippi River. They captured 1,200 African American refugees and took vengeance on many others, including women and children. A report by Colonel Nasmith of the 25th Wisconsin Infantry related the gruesome details.

Major Farnan, commanding the cavalry, reports that the scenes witnessed by him … were of a character never before witnessed in a civilized country. … They spared neither age, sex, nor condition. In some instances the Negroes were shut up in their quarters, and literally roasted alive. The charred remains found in numerous instances testified to a degree of fiendish atrocity such as has no parallel either in civilized or savage warfare. Young children, only five or six years of age, were found skulking in the cane break with wounds, while helpless women were found shot down in the most inhumane manner. The whole country was destroyed, and every sign of civilization was given to the flames.

Source: The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1889), Series 1, Vol. 24 (Part II), 517.

Anna Maria Green

Diary

Twenty-year-old Anna Maria Green kept a diary as General William Tecumseh Sherman’s army of 60,000 men approached Milledgeville, Georgia.

Saturday evening November 19th [1864] — Again we are in a state of excitement caused by the near approach to our town of the enemy. Last night they were two thousand strong at Monticello. … Minnie came in to call me to look at a fire in the west. My heart sank, and almost burst with grief as I beheld the horizon crimson and the desolation our hated foe was spreading. Great God! Deliver us, oh! Spare our city. …

Nov. 25th Friday evening … This morning the last of the vandals left our city and burned the bridge after them — leaving suffering and desolation behind them, and embittering every heart. The worst of their acts was committed to poor Mrs. Nichols — violence done, and atrocity committed that ought to make her husband an enemy unto death. Poor woman. I fear she has been driven crazy.

Source: Rod Gragg, The Illustrated Confederate Reader (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), 175–176.

Unknown Woman

Letter to Her Daughter

This letter was written by a woman in Columbia, South Carolina.

Columbia March 3, 1865

My dear Gracia

Doubtless your anxiety is very great to hear something about us after the great calamity that has befallen our town. We have lost everything, but thank God, our lives have been spared. Oh Gracia, what we have passed through no tongue can tell, it defies description! …

The first regiment sent into the city was what Sherman calls his “Tigers.” Whenever he sends these men ahead, he intends to do his worst. … The first thing they did was break open the stores and distribute the goods right and left. They found liquor and all became heartily drunk. … When night came on, the soldiers … fired the houses. It was a fearful sight. …

We stayed all night in the street, protected by a Yankee Captain from Iowa who was very kind to us.

Source: Rod Gragg, The Illustrated Confederate Reader (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), 189–190.

Daniel Heyward Trezevant

Report

Daniel Heyward Trezevant, a doctor in Columbia, South Carolina, wrote a brief report after Sherman’s departure.

The Yankees’ gallantry, brutality and debauchery were afflicted on the negroes. … The case of Mr. Shane’s old negro woman, who, after being subjected to the most brutal indecency from seven of the Yankees, was, at the proposition of one of them to “finish the old Bitch,” put into a ditch and held under water until life was extinct. …

Mrs. T. B. C. was seized by one of the soldiers, an officer, and dragged by the hair and forced to the floor for the purpose of sensual enjoyment. She resisted as far as practical — held up her young infant as a plea for sparing her and succeeded, but they took her maid, and in her presence, threw her on the floor and had connection with her. … They pinioned Mrs. McCord and robbed her. They dragged Mrs. Gynn by the hair of her head about the house. Mrs. G. told me of a young lady about 16, Miss Kinsler, who … three officers brutally ravished and who became crazy.

Source: Rod Gragg, The Illustrated Confederate Reader (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), 192.