The divisive nature of the Civil War in Kentucky presented unique challenges for the Union military authorities trying to prevent the state from joining the Confederacy. While most of the state’s civilian population threw its support behind the Union, a strong, vocal, and active group of Confederate sympathizers competed for the state’s loyalties. As did Union women, Kentucky’s Confederate women played important roles in sustaining the Rebel cause through their traditional domestic activities like sewing and provisioning. However, in the context of a civil war, such support was politicized by both the Confederate women themselves and their Union military opponents. As the Union military gained control over the state, its policies and responses toward the “she-Rebels” in Kentucky reflected this domestic politicization.
As the war began, Union officials were keenly aware of Kentucky’s precarious status in the conflict. While not wanting to be overly aggressive in its treatment of civilians, the Union nonetheless would not tolerate behavior that would promote the rebellion. Early policy reflected an attempt to balance public relations with a need to control the population. In the fall of 1861, Gen. John Anderson, Department of the Cumberland, ordered: “No one will be arrested for mere opinion’s sake. All peaceable citizens of whatever opinion will be protected if they do not engage in giving aid in any manner to the enemies of our country.”1 A subsequent order from Anderson urged the civil and military authorities “not to make any arrests except when the parties are attempting to join the rebels or are engaged in giving aid or information to them, and in all cases the evidence must be such as will convict them before a court of justice.”2 From his headquarters in Washington, D.C., Gen. George B. McClellan explained to Gen. Don Carlos Buell, the commander of the Department of the Ohio: “It is the desire of the Government to avoid unnecessary irritation by causeless arrests and persecutions of individuals. Where there is good reason to believe that persons are actually giving aid, comfort or information to the enemy it is of course necessary to arrest them. . . . It should be our constant aim to make it apparent to all that their property, their comfort and their personal safety will be best preserved by adhering to the cause of the Union.”3 The elaboration of military policy demonstrated a Union politicization of the home front and outlined the manner in which the Union military would respond to Confederate women’s transgressions. Women were the group most likely to offer aid and comfort to the Union’s enemy as they were at home and such activities fell within their traditional gender duties. The politicization came when the military made these activities susceptible to arrest and punishment. In the context of a civil war, the Union army understood Confederate women, in their traditional domestic roles, to be as politically motivated as the soldiers in the field of battle. To secure the state for the Union, the military would work to eliminate all support of the rebellion by showing the Confederates that “their property, their comfort and their personal safety” were at stake because of their Confederate loyalties.
Once the Union military had secured control over much of the state by 1862, the authorities began to tighten their policies toward rebellious civilians. Much of their focus turned toward Confederate women’s public display of their political devotions. Needing to quell any anti-Union sentiment, Unionists now attached consequences to such demonstrations. The Unionist Frances Peter noted the new treatment at a Louisville concert in 1862. One night, Confederate women “flirted out of the room” when the band played Union songs, but these women paid for their protest the next night. When the manager announced the playing of “national airs,” he warned: “All those who were too much opposed to the Government to listen to them had now an opportunity to leave. As on the previous night, a number of ladies got up and flirted out of the room, but at the door they were met by the Provost Guard who marched them off to jail.”4 Clearly a shock for these women, the moment of public embarrassment would, Unionists hoped, make others think twice about their own rebellious sentiments. When Gen. Jeremiah T. Boyle assumed command over the state in 1862, he “intensified the campaign against dissenters, arresting innumerable persons for their opinions and presumed sympathies with the rebellion.” As the most prevalent home-front supporters of the rebellion, Confederate women especially fell under the scope of his examination. By several accounts, Boyle “ordered that a prison be set up at Newport [south of Cincinnati] for the incarceration of ‘disloyal’ women, who were required to sew clothes for Union soldiers.”5 By requiring them to provision their enemies, Boyle’s policy attempted to depoliticize the Confederate women, who had otherwise sewn for their own men. If women insisted on active support of the Confederacy, Boyle’s prison in Newport assured them that their comfort and, perhaps, their personal safety would be jeopardized. Mrs. M. M. Givens of Cynthiana faced such a threat when she protested a Union soldier taking her horse. According to her account of the incident: “My indignation knew no bounds. . . . When the soldier was ordered to lead the horse away, I defied him to touch the horse or me. ‘You would look pretty if I put you up behind one of these soldiers,’ said Major Brocht, ‘and took you to Newport barracks to sew on soldiers’ clothes.’ ‘I would not do it,’ I replied; ‘you could not force me to.’ At the same time feeling pride that I had sewed on ‘butternut jeans’ more than once.”6 Givens recognized the political implications of the soldier’s threat yet was able to maintain her defiance since the consequence of her devotion was just the loss of a horse. However, other women faced weightier choices. Lizzie Hardin of Harrodsburg related the story of a sixteen-year-old girl who had been arrested and whose captors “had threatened to send her to Newport Barracks, where there were none but men, and make her sew for the Yankee soldiers. She held out until they put her on the cars, when the terror of her situation overcame her, and she told them she would rather sacrifice her conscience and take the oath than sacrifice her health sewing for the Yankees.”7 For this young woman, personal well-being triumphed over political devotion.
Further depoliticization of Confederate women came as the Union monitored women’s visits to Confederate prisoners of war in military prisons in the state. Women were frequent visitors at military prisons, looking to offer emotional support and physical comforts to their men. For instance, in Cynthiana, Kentucky, a group of women sewed two pair of pants for a Confederate soldier in prison. As a bonus, they “put some tobacco in the pockets. He wrote a note of thanks back thanking them for the pants for ‘my rear was almost exposed,’ but expressed the most joy for the hidden surprise of tobacco.”8 In another instance, as the Union escorted a group of Rebel prisoners through Kentucky, a group of secessionist women “tried to get to talk to the prisoners and brought them things to eat and flowers &c.”9 These Confederate women understood such provisioning as a way of expanding their domestic duties into the public realm to demonstrate their patriotism.10 However, Union authorities interpreted such activities as a means of sustaining the rebellion. New pants, a plug of tobacco, a friendly face, and home-cooked food would be enough for many Confederate soldiers to renew their willingness to continue the fight.
Under General Boyle’s command, these interactions between Confederate women and soldiers were severely limited. One Union assistant adjutant general asked the Louisville provost marshal: “Has it always been customary for secessionists to send victuals to the prisoners?”11 The immediate reply was no, and this was followed by Special Orders No. 18, issued by General Boyle on July 20, 1862: “No victuals or delicacies will be permitted to be furnished Military Prisoners by secessionist sympathizers and all such prisoners will be restricted to prison fare. Requests and similar favors will be strictly excluded. Newspapers and all publications and letters referring to current political matters will be strictly kept from the prisoners. Anyone attempting to convey any prisoner clandestinely or openly any of the articles herein proscribed will be immediately arrested and lodged in the Military Prison.”12
Encouragement of the rebellion was not permitted in any form. Any visitor the Union guards did allow was required to have an official pass,13 and a loyalty oath to the Union had to be sworn before a pass would be issued. In the Louisville provost marshal records from 1863, one entry noted: “Some ladies came to obtain papers to visit the Military Prison but being unwilling to take the oath of allegiance were refused. While living in our midst they must be true citizens or no privileges will be granted them. They begin to think the Pro. Mar’l a very stern ruler and not much a friend to traiters [sic] no matter how beautiful.”14 Not only had the Union literally repoliticized Confederate women with the oath; the authorities had also stripped them of the once-protective garb of gender. The war eliminated the cultural assumption “that before she was an enemy, she was a woman, and more than that, a lady.”15 Kentucky Confederate women felt that they could use this perceived immunity to express their politics in otherwise traditional ways.16 In a civil war, even pretty women were a threat.
By 1863, the Union began issuing more orders that specifically addressed Confederate women’s support for the rebellion. In that year, the commander of the Department of the Ohio issued General Orders No. 24:
The following articles of war are published for the information of all concerned;
and all officers in the military service of the United States, in the Department of the Ohio, are enjoined to arrest all persons guilty of their violation, without regard to age, sex or condition. . . .
ART. 56. “Whosoever shall relieve the enemy with money, victuals, or ammunition, or shall knowingly harbor or protect an enemy, shall suffer death, or such other punishment as shall be ordered by the sentence of a court martial.”
When Gen. Ambrose Burnside assumed command of the same department, he followed up this order with his own General Orders No. 38: “All persons within our lines who harbor, protect, conceal, feed, clothe, or in any way aid the enemies of our country” would “be tried as spies or traitors; and if convicted, will suffer death.” Burnside reasserted: “The habit of declaring sympathies for the enemy will no longer be tolerated in this department. Persons committing such offenses will be at once arrested, with a view to being tried as above stated, or sent beyond our lines into the lines of their friends.”17 No longer were traitors defined only as men who fought against the government on the field of battle; the official definition now included women on the home front. By 1864, the warning to Confederate women was clear. U.S. Chief of Staff Henry W. Halleck’s order to Gen. Stephen G. Burbridge in Lexington declaring martial law in Kentucky stated: “Any attempt at rebellion in Kentucky must be put down with a strong hand, and traitors must be punished without regard to their rank or sex.”18
With such definitive orders, Union investigations of Confederate women’s activities increased. Union records reveal that numerous Kentucky women were under close observation for any evidence of Confederate sympathies. A group of six women, all living north of Maysville, Kentucky, on Hurricane Creek, were reported as being “rebel sympathizer,” “disloyal,” or “cannot be trusted.”19 The provost marshal in Louisville issued an order “that a shrewd detective be sent to watch the movements of Miss Callie Lambertson at Planters Hotel.”20 Gen. William T. Sherman asked Lt. Col. Thomas Fairleigh to report on the activities of “a woman by the name of Louise Oyster alias Coline alias Goodwin supposed to be a rebel spy . . . reported to be in Louisville at the City Hotel.”21 A friend of Susan Grigsby’s wrote: “We have a rumor that arrests are to be made to-day—of both gentlemen and ladies—we think it is a false one, thus far are not trying to hide.”22 Lizzie Hardin dismissed all warnings of potential arrests in Harrodsburg. Concern came to her from family and friends alike; two friends came “to warn us,” one of the Hardin slaves “begged us to save ourselves by flight,” and even “Grandma begged us to hush [about laughing about the rumors] for ‘we might talk about such things until they became true.’”23 Such rumors even reached Louisville, where Cora Hume had heard that her mother would be arrested for “wav[ing] her scarf at our prisoners up in the 4th story [of the military prison].”24 Ultimately, arrests came. As Mary Wallace’s cousin reported from Louisville: “They are beginning to arrest ladies here now. Three or four ladies have been ordered south by the 18th of this month.”25 In light of the new reality, some women chose to be guarded in their actions and words. Susan Grigsby’s cousin Libby was cautious about the tone and content of her letter, stating: “Well better not write our thoughts, I for one have been maddened too often by my letters being opened, but found nothing in them to arrest me for.”26 Other women remained defiant. Indeed, Ellen Wallace’s disgust with the Union only grew with the installment of martial law. In 1864, she commented: “I was perfectly shocked this evening when Mr. Wallace told me . . . that no one was allowed to speak against [Abraham] Lincoln or his infamous administration. I cannot believe that the free born people of this land will submit to the rule of a low cowardly tyrant.”27
Outrage over the arrests abounded. Rev. George Browder, in a moment of atypical anger, noted: “Heard today that Miss Almeda Mason had been sentenced & sent off to the military prison at Johnson’s I[sland] to be confined during the war—for the crime of yielding to the dictates of common humanity & writing a letter to her brother in the rebel army! Genl Burnsides [sic] infamous order 38 can be enforced against helpless women in Ky!”28 In a clearly pro-Confederate state history, the author described the distressing times for Kentucky’s Confederate women: “Women whose children, brothers, and husbands were in the Confederate army, or dead on its battle-fields, were naturally given to uttering much treason in their speech; but it was a pitiable sight to see the power of the Federal government turned against these helpless sufferers.”29
As “helpless” as Confederate women appeared or portrayed themselves to be, their successful support of the rebellion was great enough to warrant the arrests. Whether through symbolic or real actions, women’s disloyalty would not be tolerated in Union-held Kentucky. In a letter to her family, Maria Holyoke, a Unionist, conveyed her need for justice when confronted by a Confederate’s rebellious behavior: “I trust that all traitors will in the end be punished and ‘our flag’ will again wave over a prosperous and happy country. How would it make you feel to see a young lady tear the American flag from its staff and whipe [sic] her feet on it[?] . . . Yet such things occur here, in loyal Kentucky.”30 To Unionists’ relief, justice prevailed in such cases: Lillie Parker was arrested for “distroying [sic] the American Flag”; similarly, Mary Burk was arrested for “taring [sic] down the American Flag.”31 Many Unionists found women who were vocal opponents of the Union to be particularly heinous and deserving of punishment. In the 1864 case of Jennie Mann of Louisville, one witness gave the following description: “The language used by her was so disloyal as to have the blood of ever [sic] true and loyal man boil. Such as that she wished The President was dead and that nothing would please her better and she hoped that Jeff Davis would soon be in Washington as President of the United States. That she would rather have murder on her soul than to have a Brother in the Federal Army and many other abusive and disloyal epithets.”32 More overt actions also warranted punishment. Lewis Collins recorded that, in the summer of 1863, “a number of females [were] arrested at Demossville, Pendleton co., and some other points, to be sent South. They are regarded as dangerous to the U.S. government.”33 “Dangerous” women lost the privilege of remaining in their homes under Union protection. In a January 1864 report from Louisville, Prov. Mar. Stephen Jones noted that, while the recapture of two escaped Confederate officers merited praise, attention needed to be paid to the women at whose home the arrests were made. Jones reported: “I am assured that Mrs. Lightcap and her family, consisting of her two daughters and her niece Miss L. L. Howard were aware of the character of the parties they harbored. They have all been violent and demonstrative rebels, have manifested their sympathy openly with rebel prisoners while marching through the streets and were impertinent and defiant to the officers who arrested the rebel officers. I respectfully recommend they be sent beyond the Federal lines.”34 A directive later came that Mrs. Lightcap and her daughters “be required to take the oath of allegiance, and give paroles of honor to remain north of the Ohio River during the War, to be sent through the lines should they fail to comply.”35 In securing the state for the Union, military authorities had to remain vigilant in their depoliticization of the Kentucky Confederate home front.
Generally, the Union military arrested Confederate women for a variety of causes linked to supporting the rebellion. The records of the McLean Barracks in Cincinnati offer several examples of Kentucky women who were incarcerated there for disloyal behavior. In 1863, charges against Mrs. Minerva Rees of Cynthiana, Kentucky, included “aiding and abetting the Rebels.” The specifics of Rees’s arrest state that she was twice detained “while in male attire . . . for carrying messages destined for Southern friends past the Union road guards.”36 The McLean Barracks also housed Mrs. Emily Vaughn of Boone County, Kentucky, for “communicating with Rebels beyond our lines,” and Amanda Cook of Morgan County, Kentucky, faced charges of spying.37 The Louisville military commander, Col. M. Mundy, requested assistance in the detainment of Mrs. Mattie Patterson, of Louisville, who was arrested in 1863 on charges of spying. Mundy’s concern was that “since her imprisonment she has given birth to a child and now she had been turned from the Jeffersonville Prison when they refuse to keep her.” With “no place to confine her here,” Mundy sent her to the McLean Barracks, whose records also noted that she was confined there through July and August 1863. On September 1, 1863, General Rosecrans sent word of his willingness to “remit the sentence against Mrs. Mattie Patterson on conditions that she return to her friends [in northern Illinois] and that [she] has give[n] bonds with sufficient security for her future good behavior.”38
The Union paid particular attention to those who supported Confederate guerrillas. The nature of guerrilla warfare increased the reliance on civilian support by the Confederacy; thus, the Union’s need to suppress Confederate home-front support also increased. Union authorities began targeting women who supported the Kentucky-raised Confederate cavalry general John Hunt Morgan and his men. In the summer of 1862, Morgan and his men rode through Lizzie Hardin’s hometown of Harrodsburg, Kentucky. As the parade of Confederate heroes rode by, Hardin, her mother, and her sister patriotically waved their handkerchiefs in support of the Rebels’ cause. She thought nothing of the possible consequences. In fact, she remarked: “I was not much afraid of being arrested for they [the Union authorities] had not yet ventured upon such enormity in Harrodsburg as taking women to prison for talking and if I had done anything worse they did not know it.”39 However, General Boyle had determined to suppress home-front enthusiasm, and, in July, 1862, these orders caught up with the Hardin women, Union military authorities arresting them and sending them to prison in Louisville.40
While under interrogation, Hardin persistently asserted her rights. She noted: “In the course of my remarks, I occasionally digressed to express an abstract opinion as to the relative merits of Yankees and Southerners. Also as to the right of the former to drive native-born Kentuckians from their homes.”41 With such self-righteousness and bold expression, the Hardin women failed to grasp the logic that the severity of their crime was owing to Morgan’s status as a guerrilla; they reasoned that, since Union women could salute Union troops, Confederate sympathizers should hold the same privilege.42 Union authorities felt otherwise; support like the Hardins’ would only encourage Confederate war efforts generally and perpetuate the hero worship of Morgan and his tactics.43 Found guilty of treason, the Hardins could take the loyalty oath to the Union and return home, be jailed, or be exiled to Confederate lines. While devotion to the Confederate cause prevented them from swearing the oath, Hardin’s Aunt Lucinda pled with General Boyle to release the women into her custody. She assured him that “the slightest verbal promise not to interfere with ‘the government’ would be as binding as an oath.” Boyle, however, was unimpressed and replied: “The women think they will rule Kentucky, but I will show them they can’t do it while I am military governor.”44 The divisive nature of the war in Kentucky had made women’s actions significant. In their attempt to lend emotional support to the rebellion, Confederate women in Kentucky were manipulating gender conventions for political ends. Union authorities had to eliminate these gender conventions among the enemy to be successful in the war. If exposing Confederate women to the harsh realities of political consequences for their actions facilitated the war’s end, then the arrests like the Hardins’ were warranted. As for the Hardin menace, Boyle sent Lizzie, her mother, and her sister into exile from Kentucky, and they spent the remainder of the war as refugees roaming throughout the deep South.45
Guarding against the effects of Morgan supporters continued through 1863, as the guerrilla again raided Kentucky and invaded Indiana and Ohio. Union lieutenant colonel J. N. Styles reported “two women soliciting subscriptions for the benefit of John Hunt Morgan gang[;] one of them boasting of ‘our late success.’” The provost marshal instructed Styles “to notify the women referred that no such demonstrations will be tolerated in this war.”46 Any praise of Morgan had to be silenced. In 1864, Gen. Stephen G. Burbridge ordered Louisville’s provost marshal to “take whatever steps may be necessary to prevent the circulation in this city of Mrs. Sallie Rochester Ford’s Book entitled ‘Romance and Raids of Morgan and his Men.’”47 Even after the Morgan threat was eliminated, Confederate guerrillas remained active in the state through 1865, continuing to rely on sympathetic women for support and assistance. Union tolerance for this remained low even as the war drew to a close, and records indicate that numerous women were arrested from late 1864 through 1865: on November 10, 1864, Olivia H. Park of Bath County was arrested “for aiding and abetting guerrillas”; Elise Jones of Warren County, Kentucky, was arrested in Bowling Green in February, 1865, for “aiding Guerrillas”; and Rachel Carter, Nancy Ann Downs, and Sarah A. Stevens, all of Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, were arrested on April 20, 1865, on charges of “Harboring Guerrillas.”48 The details of such assistance come to light in the cases of Miss Hutchinson and Mrs. Wilson, both of Louisville. In a sworn affidavit, John C. Gorin noted that, when the captain of his regiment had escaped, he received clothes and money from Hutchinson and so on his own escape he too sought Hutchinson. She offered him five dollars and referred him to other sympathetic citizens in the area. Gorin then went “to Mrs. Wilson for help as an escaped rebel Prisoner in company with a federal Soldier who she thought was a rebel soldier[.] She gave me 2 pr. Drawers, 3 Shirts One Pr Pants and one Hat and gave me a note to Mr. Charley Miller for money.”49 This provisioning, even as the war had all but ended, spoke to the lingering importance of Confederate women in sustaining elements of the rebellion.
Finally, Confederate women’s ability to communicate with their men in the military was of particular concern for Union authorities. Women’s letters to their loved ones on the battlefield were often filled with what seemed like innocuous information about daily life and surroundings; however, if those descriptions included remarks about Union troops, the potential for security leaks was too great to go unchecked. Frances Peter presented a case in point concerning Mrs. Joel Higgins. According to one report: “One of the principal things against her was a letter she wrote to her sons, in which she invited them back. Said now was the time for them to come, that the Federals had more sick in the hospitals than men in the field. That now was the time for retaliation . . . [for the] twelve noble Southern men [who] had been murdered in cold blood the night before.”50 The seriousness of this woman’s actions was manifold. First, reporting on Union troop strength to her Confederate sons counted as treason. Second, her desire for violent revenge for the deaths of other Confederates in the state spoke to her continued support of the rebellion, which Union authorities knew had to be quelled. Following her detainment, authorities determined that her punishment would be either exile to the South or a trial, where she would be hanged if convicted.51
The Union desire was to remove such a potential threat completely. Several cases demonstrated the danger to the Union cause in Kentucky that the wives of Confederate officers still living in the state posed. One was the case of Mrs. Marible, who was found, on returning from a visit to her Rebel husband, to have begun “reporting favorably of the conditions of Dixie abusing the U.S. Government and doing what she can to encourage rebellion.”52 Another case was that of Mrs. L. Mumfort of Oldham County, Kentucky. Union authorities had not only “detected [her] in the act of carrying provisions to two escaped rebel prisoners, concealed near her home,” but also found her to have been “in constant communication with her husband [a Confederate soldier fighting in Virginia]” and to have been “a violent & defiant rebel since the war began.” Asst. Adj. Gen. Stephen Jones remarked: “An example among this class of women in Ky is greatly needed. I have the honor to recommend that she be sent through the lines in Eastern Ky or in East Tenn.”53 Authorities did finally catch up with Mrs. Mary Faulkner Hoffman for “passing through Confederate lines” to visit her husband in Georgia. Earlier in the war, her Confederate sympathies led her covertly to feed and supply Confederate soldiers in Union-occupied Cynthiana. After giving the soldiers “‘Yankee’ overcoats and pepper-box pistols for protection,” she guided them out of town to rejoin their troops.54 When Hoffman was initially brought to Louisville, the provost marshal, Lt. Col. Henry Dent, forwarded her papers to General Boyle and then remarked: “Having no place suitable for her, I respectfully request instructions.”55
Indeed, exile was often the course of action taken for many families of Confederate soldiers in Kentucky. The authorities ordered numerous women and children out of the state simply for their relationship to a Confederate soldier or officer. Col. M. Mundy, the commander in Louisville in 1863, reflected on the value of such policy:
The encumbering of the rebels from Ky with their family, would be certain to induce reflection, which is the first step towards repentance. While they know that their wives and children are safe and comfortable under the good government they are striving to destroy like reckless spendthrifts they plunge on in their evil cause; but send their families to risk the jeopardy they are helping to make and most of them will soon begin the debate in their own minds upon this important question: “While I am trying to help my southern neighbors to their rights what am I doing with those of my own family?” and but few of them are so insane as not to stop the ruin they would work upon themselves. I am not an advocate for the punishment of women for the wrongs of their husbands; but the lives of our thousands of soldiers are to be considered before the personal comforts of rebels’ wives.56
Union authorities came to understand the hypocrisy behind the Kentucky Confederate women’s expectation of protection from a government that they and their soldiers were trying to undermine. Familial associations frequently warranted the loss of property and the comforts of home.
From a set of Louisville military records we can see that, between May 1863 and November 1864, ten women were notified by the Union authorities “to make preparations to be sent to your husband within the Confederate lines.” Not only did these women lose their homes; they also were limited in the amount of personal property they could take with them. These women were allowed “to carry one trunk not to exceed in weight one hundred pounds containing your personal apparel and one trunk of like dimensions containing the clothing of your children. . . . You will also be allowed to carry money with you to the amount of One Thousand . . . Dollars for your personal expenses.” The authorities also issued a final warning: “You will not be allowed to return during the war under penalty of being considered and treated as a spy.”57 Once a threat was eliminated, the Union did not want it returned. At least one Confederate navy officer’s wife recognized and accepted the Union’s interpretation of the threat of Confederate families in the state. In her request for a pass to join her husband in Richmond, Virginia, Mrs. Bernard Pratt of Louisville “offer[ed] to pledge her honor not to carry to the rebels any information, & to remain in the rebel lines . . . during the continuance of the rebellion.”58
Even if the Union did not remove Confederate women from the state, evidence of disloyalty could also cause them to lose their property. Much of the value of the Kentucky home front was its use as a supply line for friend and enemy alike. Often, in the constant need to resupply Union soldiers in the state, officers would take provisions from Confederate homes, reinforcing the association between disloyalty and loss of property. Major General Burbridge ordered one of his officers in Munfordsville, Kentucky, to “press houses from rebel citizens in the different counties in your district to mount the 48th and 26th Ky [Regiments]. Let the pressing be done by commissioned officers and the receipts show that the parties are disloyal.”59 Even without orders from officers, Union soldiers frequently ransacked Confederate homes for provisions. Josephine Covington, a Confederate, noted that, when the Union occupied her hometown of Bowling Green, the soldiers “went from garret to cellar, . . . insulting persons in them, particularly those of southern proclivities in the lowest manner. . . . They broke into the houses stealing every thing that they could possibly use, even taking womens and childrens clothes to send to their own families as they said.”60
As the need for hospital space became urgent, orders were issued to take possession of homes to convert.61 Not only would a woman lose her privacy, but she and her family would be exposed to the diseased and unsanitary conditions that came with army medical care at the time. Dr. F. Meacham, a surgeon stationed in Lexington, informed his commander: “We have at present twelve cases of Small Pox, and the number is increasing daily. . . . There is a house on the Richmond pike three miles from the city owned by the wife of the Rebel Gen’l Preston which is very well addapted [sic] for [housing the smallpox cases]. Col. King will seize the house if authorized.”62 Threats to a woman’s property were often enough to sway her professed loyalties. On October 6, 1862, the provost marshal in Paducah, Kentucky, noted: “Mrs. Adams . . . applied to me for relef [sic] about her home. . . . On examination of her I found her to be a violent Rebel[,] and [she] declared she will not take the oath if she rots, That she illuminated her home . . . on the ‘Bull Run’ victory—I promised her to send for her and to take her property if she refused to take the oath.” The threat and her need for Union protection of her property worked; Mrs. Adams swore the oath on October 9, 1862.63
The evolution of Union military policy toward Kentucky’s Confederate women reflected the growing recognition of the importance of the home front in the Civil War. At first, when the state’s loyalty was uncertain, Union commanders placed only general restrictions on the population’s devotion to the Confederacy. By 1862, once the main Confederate military threat to the state had been quelled, Union authorities could more specifically target lingering Confederate sentiment. It was at this point that women’s public opinions and actions took on greater significance in the fight to control the state. With the increase in guerrilla activity late in the war, the contribution that women’s domestic activities made in sustaining the rebellion spurred the Union to suppress further the Confederate’s efforts. Union success in Kentucky would not be complete until all elements of Confederate support were eliminated.
Support for the rebellion through domestic means was the way in which Kentucky Confederate women could be active participants in the conflict. Women on both sides transferred their traditional duties of providing for men’s physical and emotional needs to their soldiers during the war. Because of the divided sympathies within the state and the Union need to retain complete control over the state, women’s traditional domestic actions fell under military scrutiny. Because Confederate women supported the rebellion, they were susceptible to real consequences for their political choice, just as their soldiers were for fighting against the Union. The so-called she-Rebels faced investigations, arrests, imprisonment, and exile for their devotion to the secessionist cause. The Union military depoliticized Confederate women’s domestic efforts by enacting consequences that would demonstrate that women’s comfort, safety, and property were secure only if they supported the Union.
1. Assistant Adjutant-General Oliver D. Greene to J. J. Anderson, Esq., September 27, 1861, U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 1861–1865 (hereafter cited as OR), 70 vols. in 128 pts. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1880–1901), ser. 2, vol. 2, pp. 81–82.
2. Brigadier-General John Anderson, General Orders No. 5, October 7, 1861, in OR, ser. 2, vol. 2, pp. 91–92. See also Edward Conrad Smith, The Borderland in the Civil War (New York: Macmillan, 1927), 372–73.
3. McClellan to Buell, November 12, 1861, in OR, ser. 2, vol. 2, p. 136.
4. Frances Peter, transcribed diary, November 6, 1862, Evans Papers: Frances (Dallam) Peter material, 72M15, box 7, folder 86, pp. 106–7, University of Kentucky (UK) Archives and Special Collections, M. I. King Library, Lexington.
5. Martha McDowell Buford Jones, Peach Leather and Rebel Gray: Bluegrass Life and the War, 1860–1865: Farm and Social Life, Famous Horses, Tragedies of War: Diary and Letters of a Confederate Wife, ed. Mary E. Wharton and Ellen F. Williams (Lexington, Ky.: Helicon, 1986), 90. See also Lizzie [Elizabeth Pendleton] Hardin, The Private War of Lizzie Hardin: A Kentucky Confederate Girl’s Diary of the Civil War in Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia, ed. G. Glen Clift (Frankfort: Kentucky Historical Society, 1963), 96–97n. Several other state histories make references to Boyle’s attention to Confederate women. See Lewis Collins, History of Kentucky, rev. ed., ed. Richard H. Collins, 2 vols. (Frankfort: Kentucky Historical Society, 1966), vol. 1; E. Merton Coulter, Civil War and Reconstruction in Kentucky (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1966); and Lowell Harrison and James C. Klotter, A New History of Kentucky (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1997), 205–6.
6. Mrs. M. M. Givens, Minutes of the Fourteenth Annual Convention of the Kentucky Division Daughters of the Confederacy; Held in Louisville, Kentucky, October 12, 13 and 14, 1910 (Lexington, Ky.: Press of Transylvania Printing Co., 1910), 75.
7. Hardin, Private War, 157. Collins also confirms this story. Only July 28, 1862, he records: “By order of Gen. Boyle, a prison prepared at Newport for ‘rebel females’—where they will be required to sew for the Federal soldiers” (History of Kentucky, 105).
8. William A. Penn, Rattling Spurs and Broad-Brimmed Hats: The Civil War in Cynthiana and Harrison County, Kentucky (Midway, Ky.: Battle Grove, 1995), 150.
9. Peter, diary, September 22, 1863, UK Archives.
10. LeeAnn Whites, The Civil War as a Crisis in Gender: Augusta, Georgia, 1860–1890 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1995), 57–58.
11. Captain John Boyle to Lt. Col. Dent, Louisville, July 18, 1862, National Archives (NA), Washington, D.C., Preliminary Inventory of the Records of the United States Army Continental Commands, 1821–1920, Record Group (RG) 393, pt. 4, Military Installations, 1821–81 (hereafter cited as pt. 4), Louisville, 1861–66, entry 1636, “Letters Received, 1862–65.”
12. Lt. Col. Henry Dent to Capt. Dillard, July 18, 1862, NA, RG 393, pt. 4, Louisville, Ky., 1861–66, entry 1632, “Letters Sent by the Provost Marshal, Jan. 1862–Apr. 1863,” vol. 220, DKy, p. 61; Brigadier General Jeremiah Boyle, Special Orders No. 18, July 20, 1862, NA, RG 393, pt. 4, Louisville, Ky., 1861–66, entry 1636, “Letters Received, 1862–65.”
13. See, e.g., Maj. Selby Hamer to Capt. W. G. Dilliard, June 26, 1862, NA, RG 393, pt. 4, Louisville, Ky., 1861–66, entry 1632, “Letters Sent by the Provost Marshal, Jan. 1862–Apr. 1863,” vol. 220, DKy, p. 40; Special Orders No. 14, October 3, 1863, NA, RG 393, pt. 4, entry 729, “Letters Sent, Jan.–Aug. 1862, Dec. 1862–Feb. 1864, and May 1866–June 1873,” 2 of 3, vol. 142, bk. 329, DKy; Order from Brig. Gen. Boyle to Major D. C. Fitch, May 8, 1863, NA, RG 393, pt. 4, Louisville, Ky., 1861–66, entry 1636, “Letters Received, 1862–65.”
14. April 19, [1863], NA, RG 393, pt. 4, Louisville, Ky., 1861–66, entry 1644, “Miscellaneous Records, 1861–65,” 5 of 5, vol. 161, bk. 381, DKy, p. 9.
15. Drew Gilpin Faust, Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), 198, 205; Victoria E. Bynum, Unruly Women: The Politics of Social and Sexual Control in the Old South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1992), 143–44.
16. Faust, Mothers of Invention, 210, 214.
17. OR, ser. 1, vol. 23, pt. 2, p. 237. See also Newspaper Clipping, RG 393, pt. 4, entry 304, vol. 113, bk. 261, DKy.
18. Halleck to Burbridge, June 25, 1864, OR, ser. 1, vol. 39, pt. 2, pp. 144–45. On July 19, 1864, Abraham Lincoln issued General Orders No. 233 from the War Department in Washington, D.C., officially declaring martial law in Kentucky. See OR, ser. 1, vol. 39, pt. 2, p. 180.
19. NA, RG 393, pt. 1, Geographical Divisions and Departments and Military (Reconstruction) Districts (hereafter cited as pt. 1), entry 2237, “Miscellaneous Records of the Provost Marshal, 1863–66,” 4 of 5, vol. 219, bk. 517, pp. 5, 28, 72, 81, 107.
20. Order from Capt. S. E. Jones, March 19, 1864, NA, RG 393, pt. 4, Louisville, Ky., 1861–66, entry 1635, “Register of Letters Received, Sept. 1861–Sept. 1863, Feb.–Oct. 1864, and Jan. 1865–Feb. 1866,” 1 of 2, vol. 145, bk. 340, DKy.
21. Maj.-Gen. W. T. Sherman to Lt. Col. Thos. B. Fairleigh, August 1, 1864, NA, RG 393, pt. 4, Louisville, Ky., 1862–73, entry 739, “Special Orders Issued, Jan. 1862–June 1873,” 5 of 6, vol. 152, bk. 363, DKy, p. 66.
22. H. Mepick to Susan Grigsby, August 11, 1862, Susan Preston (Shelby) Grigsby Papers, MS A.G857, folder 173, Filson Historical Society (FHS), Louisville, Ky.
23. Hardin, Private War, 101.
24. “War between the States Seen with 13-Year-Old Eyes in Diary of Louisvillian Still Living,” Louisville Courier-Journal, September 20, 27, October 4, 1936, citing a January 24, 1863, diary entry of Cora Owens Hume’s.
25. Cousin Hattie to Mary Hooe Wallace, May 7, 1863, Edmund T. Halsey Collection, MS A.H196, folder 32, Letters to her, 1863, FHS.
26. Libby [?] to Susan Grigsby, January 5, 1864, Susan Preston (Shelby) Grigsby Papers, MS A.G857, folder 181, FHS.
27. Ellen Kenton MaGaughey Wallace, August 16, 1864, in “Journal, 1849–1865,” transcribed and annotated by James T. Killebrew (1988), in Wallace-Starling Family Diaries, 96M07, folder 1, Kentucky Historical Society, Frankfort.
28. George Browder, diary entry, June 23, 1863, in The Heavens Are Weeping: The Diaries of George Richard Browder, 1852–1886, ed. Richard L. Troutman (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1987), 157. See also Thomas D. Clark, A History of Kentucky, rev. 6th ed. (Ashland: Jesse Stuart Foundation, 1988), 346.
29. N. S. [Nathanial Southgate] Shaler, Kentucky: A Pioneer Commonwealth, 4th ed. (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1888), 348.
30. Maria Holyoke to Mother and Sister, August 16, 1861, Holyoke Family Papers, MS CH, typed copy, FHS.
31. Entry date November 21, 1863, NA, RG 393, pt. 4, Louisville, Ky., 1861–66, entry 1644, “Miscellaneous Records, 1861–65,” 1 of 5, vol. 222, bk. 528, DKy; Entry date April 16, 1865, NA, RG 393, pt. 4, Louisville, Ky., 1861–65, entry 1644, “Miscellaneous Records, 1861–65,” 7 of 10, vol. 228, bk. 549, DKy, 253.
32. Papers in the case of Miss Jennie Mann, Statement by Capt. W.H. Ward, October 17, 1864, NA, RG 393, pt. 1, Provost Marshal, entry 2229, “Correspondence, Affidavits, and Oaths Relating to Civilians Charged with Illegal or Disloyal Acts, 1863–65.”
33. Collins, History of Kentucky, 123. Collins also mentions the arrests of other women on July 18, 1864. See ibid., 136.
34. Report by Stephen Jones, January 15, 1864, NA, RG 393, pt. 1, Provost Marshal, entry 2239, “Correspondence, Affidavits, and Oaths Relating to Civilians Charged with Illegal or Disloyal Acts, 1863–65,” 2 of 3.
35. Directive dated February 26, 1864, NA, RG 393, pt. 4, Louisville, Ky., 1861–66, entry 1635, “Register of Letters Received, Sept. 1861–Sept. 1863, Feb.–Oct. 1864, and Jan. 1865–Feb. 1866,” 1 of 2, vol. 145, bks. 338, 340, DKy.
36. U.S. War Department, Selected Records of the War Department Relating to Confederate Prisoners of War, 1861–1865, roll 97, vols. 311–17; McLean Barracks, Cincinnati, Ohio, Register of Prisoners and Order Books, 1863–1865, National Archives Microfilm Publications, microcopy 598 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, 1965), located at the Kentucky State Archives, Microfilm Drawer 529, M598-0097 (hereafter cited as U.S. War Department, McLean Barracks); Penn, Rattling Spurs and Broad-Brimmed Hats, 43, 48, 175.
37. U.S. War Department, McLean Barracks.
38. Col. M. Mundy to Brig. Gen. Garfield, August 27, 1863, NA, RG 393, pt. 4, Louisville, Ky., 1862–73, entry 729, “Letters Sent, Jan.–Aug. 1862, Dec. 1862–Feb. 1864, and May 1866–June 1873,” 2 of 3, vol. 142, bk. 329; U.S. War Department, McLean Barracks; Order by Major General Rosecrans, September 1, 1863, NA, RG 393, pt. 4, Louisville, Ky., 1862–73, entry 729, “Letters Sent, Jan.–Aug 1862, Dec. 1862–Feb. 1864, and May 1866–June 1873,” 2 of 3, vol. 142, bk. 329.
39. Hardin, Private War, 96–97.
40. Ibid., 125. Collins notes on August 2, 1862: “Three ladies, of Harrodsburg, brought to Louisville by one Capt. Jack Mann, and put in the military prison” (History of Kentucky, 105).
41. Hardin, Private War, 103.
42. Ibid., 122–23.
43. James A. Ramage, Rebel Raider: The Life of John Hunt Morgan (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1986), 64–68.
44. Hardin, Private War, 153.
45. Ibid., 125.
46. NA, RG 393, pt. 1, Provost Marshal, entry 2241, “Register of Letters Received and Endorsements Sent by Capt. Stephen E. Jones, Provost Marshal and Aide-de-Camp, May 1863–Dec. 1864,” 1 of 2, vol. 21, pp. 102, 103.
47. Col. S. D. Rance to Major D. C. Fitch, March 19, 1864, NA, RG 393, pt. 4, Louisville, Ky., 1861–66, entry 1636, “Letters Received, 1862–65.”
48. NA, RG 393, pt. 1, Provost Marshal, entry 2237, “Miscellaneous Records of the Provost Marshal, 1863–66,” 5 of 5, vol. 269, bk. 509, DKy, pp. 173, 104, 28, 38, 206, respectively.
49. Affidavits in the cases of Miss Hutchinson and Mrs. Wilson, April 13, 1865, NA, RG 393, pt. 1, Provost Marshal, entry 2229, “Correspondence, Affidavits, and Oaths Relating to Civilians Charged with Illegal or Disloyal Acts, 1863–65.”
50. Peter, diary, March 26, 1863, p. 174, UK Archives.
51. Ibid.
52. October 7, 1863, NA, RG 393, pt. 4, Louisville, Ky., 1861–66, entry 1637, “Register of Letters Received Relating to Prisoners, Feb. 1862–Dec. 1864,” vol. 145, bk. 339.
53. Stephen E. Jones, February 1, [1864?], NA, RG 393, pt. 1, Provost Marshal, entry 2239, “Press Copies of Letters Sent by Capt. Stephen E. Jones, Provost Marshal and Aide-de-Camp, Apr. 1863–Feb. 1865,” 2 of 3.
54. Penn, Rattling Spurs and Broad-Brimmed Hats, 43, 175.
55. Lt. Col. Henry Dent to Brig. Gen. Jeremiah Boyle, August 1, 1862, NA, RG 393, pt. 4, Louisville, Ky., 1861–66, entry 1632, “Letters Sent by the Provost Marshal, Jan. 1862–Apr. 1863,” vol. 220, p. 76.
56. Col. M. Mundy to Capt. A. C. Semple, May 20, 1863, NA, RG 393, pt. 4, Louisville, Ky., 1862–73, entry 729, “Press Copies of Letters Sent, May 1863–Jan. 1866,” 2 of 3, vol. 142, bk. 329, DKy.
57. Col. M. Mundy to Mrs. Charles Johnson, May 4, 1863, NA, RG 393, pt. 4, Louisville, Ky., 1862–73, entry 729, “Letters Sent, Jan.–Aug. 1862, Dec. 1862–Feb. 1864, and May 1866–June 1873,” 2 of 3, vol. 142, bk. 329, DKy. See also letters dated May 4, May 5, May 13, 1863, in ibid.; Special Orders No. 111, May 18, 1863, NA, RG 393, pt. 4, Louisville, Ky., 1862–73, entry 732, “Register of Letters Received, May–Aug. 1863,” vol. 149, bks. 353, 354, 356, DKy; Col. M. Mundy to Mrs. Dr. L. Blackburn, July 21, 1863, NA, RG 393, pt. 4, Louisville, Ky., 1862–73, entry 729, “Letters Sent, Jan.–Aug. 1862, Dec. 1862–Feb. 1864, and May 1866–June 1873,” 2 of 3, vol. 142, bk. 329, DKy; Capt. Stephen E. Jones to Capt. C. Bates Dickson, November 16, 1864, NA, RG 393, pt. 1, Provost Marshal, entry 2239, “Press Copies of Letters Sent by Capt. Stephen E. Jones, Provost Marshal and Aide-de-Camp, Apr. 1863–Feb. 1865,” 3 of 3, vol. 17, letter book C, p. 244. See also ibid., p. 74.
58. Capt. Stephen E. Jones to Capt. C. Bates Dickson, November 16, 1864, NA, RG 393, pt. 1, Provost Marshal, entry 2239, “Press Copies of Letters Sent by Capt. Stephen E. Jones, Provost Marshal and Aide-de-Camp, Apr. 1863–Feb. 1865,” 3 of 3, vol. 17, letter book C, p. 244.
59. Bvt. Maj. Genl. Stephen Burbridge to Brig. Genl. Hugh Ewing, July 7, [1864?], NA, RG 393, pt. 1, General Records, entry 2168, “Telegrams Sent, Jan. 1864–Feb. 1865,” 1 of 2, vol. 62, bk. 119, DKy, p. 108.
60. Josephine Covington (Wells) [Mrs. Albert Covington] to Robert Wells, March 2, 1862, MS C C, FHS.
61. Brig. Genl. Stephen Burbridge to Lt. Col. T. B. Fairleigh, June 28, [?], NA, RG 393, pt. 1, General Records, entry 2168, “Telegrams Sent, Jan. 1864–Feb. 1865,” 1 of 2, vol. 62, bk. 119, DKy, p. 95; Brig. Genl. Stephen Burbridge to Lt. Col. Thomas B. Fairleigh, June 28, 1864, NA, RG 393, pt. 4, Louisville, Ky., 1862–73, entry 739, “Special Orders Issued, Jan. 1862–June 1873,” 5 of 6, vol. 152, bk. 363, DKy, p. 51.
62. F. Meacham to George S. Shumard, March 10, 1864, NA, RG 393, pt. 4, Louisville, Ky., 1861–66, entry 1636, “Letters Received, 1862–65.”
63. Report of J. C. Dawn, Provost Marshal, October 6, 1862, NA, RG 393, pt. 4, Paducah, Ky., 1862–65, entry 1708, “Records of the Provost Marshal, 1862–65,” 2 of 2, vol. 231, bk. 558, DKy, p. 25.