Stories from the Civil War

Making Ends Meet

From Tar Heel Junior Historian 26 [spring 1987], 23–28.

Hunger, danger, and a lack of clothing affected people at home as well as soldiers in the field. The removal of a large part of North Carolina’s male population left many families stranded at home with little or no food. The low pay offered Confederate soldiers meant that women and children had to go without many things or invent substitutes for them if they hoped to survive.

Woman's hat, ca. 1865, fashioned from braided palmetto fronds, one of many creative substitutions women employed during supply shortages.

Most soldiers’ wives came from the nonslaveholding class of farmers. When their husbands left for war, women became the providers for their families. Hard field labor on crops was done with women’s and children’s muscles. One observer in 1861 described the planting, hoeing, and plowing rural farm women performed, “while their babes lie on blankets or old coats in the corn rows.” To obtain salt, many dug up the dirt floors in smokehouses to scavenge salt left there from years of curing meat.

Not all women could manage farming and rearing children by themselves. Many women and children died from diseases caused by a scarcity of food, clothes, and medicine. Women wrote despairing letters to their husbands, fathers, and brothers pleading for the men to return home. Other women addressed Governor Zebulon Vance and asked for help. Men and women often denounced the wealthy planters and speculators who had plenty of food but would not sell it cheaply to needy soldiers’ families. Anger against slaveholders became especially bitter because of the Confederate exemption policy. This meant that men who owned twenty or more slaves did not have to go into the army, but nonslaveholding white males were drafted virtually without exception.

Littlton, NC, Feb. 17, 1863
    Mr. gov. Vance, if you please to tell me what we poore soldiers wifes is to do that we are hear sufering for the want of something to eat.…I sent to warrenton yesterday and they said the government had not put any thing there for the Soldiers wifes I never have suferd so much as I have for the last three or four months for I have to go some times week with nothing but bread to eat and I think that is to hard to take a poor man from his wife and children to leave hear to perish to death when we go to these rich people bout hear they wont let us have not one pound of meat for less than 50 cent per pound we have corn mily in our destrict but they will not do any thing for us my Husband has ben in the army nearly two year and they dont let him come home to see me much less provide any way for me to live if you dont provide some way for us to live we will be compell to take our little children and to our Husband or they must come home to us if you plese [write] to me as soon as you get this and let me no what we are to [do]. direct your letter to littleton depot.  

yours truly Mrs. L. Reid, Mrs. M. Neal, Mrs. C. Aycock, Mrs. Thomson, Mrs. Elbeth, Susan Shearin, the wife of Thomas W Shearin

(Governors Papers, State Archives, Raleigh.)

Women, desperate for food and disgusted with merchants who hoarded goods or sold them for high prices, sometimes took matters into their own hands. In 1863 nearly seventy-five women seized flour and other food in Salisbury from speculators. Five women received jail sentences in 1864 for removing seven sacks of grain from the Bladenboro depot. Women from Catawba County attacked distillers who turned precious grain needed for food into whiskey. A newspaper reporter described the battle between the ax-wielding women and the male distillers: “Barrels roll—hoops fly...ladies stand ankle deep in the flowing ‘elixor,’ and ply their weapons, if somewhat awkwardly, yet with terrible slaughter,—they are in the spirit.”

RALEIGH FOOD PRICES, 1862–1865

Catherine Edmondston, the wife of a prominent Halifax County planter, kept a detailed diary of her Civil War experiences. Her diary, published by the Division of Archives and History, is titled “Journal of a Secesh Lady”: The Diary of Catherine Ann Devereux Edmondston, 1860–1866. The diary shows the interests of the planter class. Catherine Edmondston strongly supported the war effort and detested the North Carolinians who remained loyal to the Union. She and her husband Patrick willingly contributed to “the cause,” but neither faced real hardship until 1865. Then, when Confederate troops seized their livestock and food, the Edmondstons discovered they disliked forced impressments just as much as the nonslaveholders who had endured similar demands since 1863.

February 18, 1861   
Today was inaugurated at Montgomery Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, consisting of the states of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana & Texas. O that North Carolina would join with her Southern sisters—sisters in blood, in soil, in climate & in institution. Would that these vile party politicians had no part or lot in her....

It gets almost painful to go to Father’s we differ so widely. He it is true says nothing personal or unhandsome, but he censures so sweepingly every thing that SC does. Mama & Susan do go on so about the “Flag.” Who cares for the old striped rag now that the principle it represented is gone? It is but an emblem of a past glory. How can it be upheld when the spirit—nay even the body—that gave it value is lost?...

January 31, 1862   
Dined with Sister Frances. All well & as usual, she busy making Haversacks and Flags for the Regiments to take the field in the Spring. Went visiting in the morning. Susan Rayner carried me into the Ladies Soldiers Aid Society, the same one to whom I gave my wool Mattrass in the Fall to be knit into socks. Ellen Mordecai is the President and Susan the Treasurer. We found abut a dozen ladies all hard at work on Hospital shirts & drawers. Ellen & Susan had their Sewing Machines & all were as busy as possible. The work they have done is wonderful, indeed the Ladies all through the country have been heart & soul in the cause. Never was there such universal enthusiasm, enthusiasm too which does not evaporate in words but shows itself in work, real hard work, steady and constant. These Ladies have spent three days of the week at this Society room since Sept & show no signs of flagging....

March 15, 1865    
...This morning came an Agent from a Committee of citizens organized according to Gov Vance’s suggestion to collect voluntary subscriptions of meat, meal, & flour for the army. These supplies are to be over and above every man’s surplus that the Government already has. It must be from his own stock of provisions, what he denies himself for the sake of the army....There will be many days this summer when we cannot taste meat, but what of that if our army is fed.

April 11, 1865   
Yesterday came the Impressing officers with orders from Gen Johnston to take all the best of our team, to leave us only the worthless & the inferior. The order runs, “take all that will be of service to the enemy.” The feeling against it is intense throughout the country. We think that as the Government confessedly is too weak to protect us, that at least it ought not thus to deprive us of the means of making a support....

Upon the heels of the horse impressers is to come another gang with direction to take all our meat save three months supply!...We have given & freely given all we could spare & were we asked to give more and live on vegetables, would do it cheerfully & willingly for the sake of the Cause, but this forced patriotism is not the thing, is not the way to treat a free & generous people, & ere long hearts will be alienated from the Government & system that thus tramples on our rights, our feelings, & our sacred honour....

May 7, 1865   
What use is there in my writing this record? What profit, what pleasure, do I find in it? None! none! yet altho it is an actual pain to me I continue it from mere force of habit. We are crushed! subjugated! and I fear, O how I fear, conquered, & what is to me the saddest part, our people do not feel it as they ought....The cup has not to them the full bitterness which a once free people ought to find in the draught held to them by a Victor’s hand....Their once high spirit, their stern resolve, seems dead within them!...Oh my Country, my Country, I look forward to the future with bitter forebodings when I see your children thus forgetful of your and their own honour, of their own blood!...

(From Beth G. Crabtree and James W. Patton, eds., “Journal of a Secesh Lady”: The Diary of Catherine Ann Devereux Edmondston, 1860–1866 [Raleigh: Division of Archives and History, 1979].)

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Children in the Civil War

The Civil War affected children greatly. With fathers and other male relatives away fighting, children were expected to take on additional responsibilities. Boys often had to work the farm, taking over for their absent fathers. Girls were given more household duties to assist their overworked mothers and other female relatives. Many children had to quit school to help at home.

Many women were surprised at how their children incorporated the war into their lives. Children’s games and play revolved around war activities: marching and drilling, building hospitals out of blocks, and acting injured. Many children became avid letter writers, corresponding with their fathers, brothers, and uncles who were fighting in the war. Some joined soldiers’ aid societies, raising money for the war effort by selling trinkets and magazine subscriptions, rolling bandages, and assisting with sanitary fairs.

Recreation didn’t focus entirely on the war. Baseball was rapidly gaining popularity in the 1860s with both soldiers and boys on the home front. Boys also enjoyed foot-ball, which resembled today’s soccer, and tenpin, the 1860s version of bowling. Boys and girls played board games such as chess, checkers, or Parcheesi, if available. Blindman’s buff was a popular party game for boys and girls that didn’t require props. Girls enjoyed parlour dancing and a game called graces, played by throwing a hoop back and forth from the crossed ends of two light sticks. To make the game more challenging, two hoops were kept in motion.

Children’s magazines and literature were popular during the Civil War. Many publications suggested ways to help the war effort, explained the causes of the war, or contained romanticized adventure stories of brave soldiers in battle.

Shortages were difficult for children. Poor nutrition and lack of food, combined with extra work, made daily life harsh. Children often had to make do with handmade toys such as corn husk dolls and rough-hewn wooden games, and they were expected to be extra careful with their belongings, which were difficult to replace.

Boys as young as thirteen from North Carolina joined the Confederate army and navy. At the beginning of the war, North Carolina’s minimum age for military service was eighteen. In February 1864, the Confederate Congress changed the minimum enlistment age to seventeen. The seventeen- and eighteen-year-old recruits, known as Junior Reserves, eventually were organized into the Seventieth Regiment. Those under the minimum age often joined covertly. Although youth participated in all positions in the army, many of the youngest boys were musicians, as they often were too small to carry heavy arms. On the battlefield, these young musicians put down their drums and bugles and became medical aids in field hospitals, couriers, stretcher-bearers, and grave diggers. Youth in the navy often carried powder bags.

Stories of Young North Carolina Soldiers

In 1861 John P. Young of Cabarrus County enlisted at the age of sixteen with his father. He was appointed second lieutenant. They served together until his father resigned in January 1863. In March he was promoted to captain. He died on May 3, 1863, leading his company in an attack on the Federal lines at Chancellorsville, Virginia.

Benjamin H. Gray, a twelve-year-old African American from Bertie County, served as a crew member on the CSS Albemarle during its battles in 1864. His primary job was carrying powder bags from the powder magazine below deck up to the Albemarle’s guns. Gray survived the engagements of the Albemarle and returned home after the war.

Chatham County native Henry A. London enlisted at age sixteen in January 1865 and was assigned to be a general’s courier. On April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Courthouse, Private London delivered the last orders to North Carolina brigadier general William R. Cox to cease firing and withdraw.

Because of a shortage of leather, civilians wore wooden shoes such as this one, ca. 1864.

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The Secret War

(From Tar Heel Junior Historian 26 [spring 1987], 29–32.)

Beginning in 1862 many North Carolinians organized rallies and support for a statewide peace movement. Although other Southern states experienced similar public appeals, North Carolina led the South’s peace initiative.

Supporters of the state’s peace movement came from two different camps. The most determined opponents to the Confederate war effort were Unionists called Tories or Buffaloes. These men and women never accepted the Confederacy and actively worked to stop its success. Men joined the Union army or acted as spies for Federal troops. They encouraged friends and neighbors to desert from the Confederate army and helped them avoid recapture. Women provided food and shelter to Confederate deserters and draft dodgers. They also kept watch for Southern military forces. The women used different signals to alert their friends to danger— songs, hog calls, and even quilts hung over a fence kept their associates safe from arrest. 

Other supporters of the peace movement came from small, independent farm families who initially had backed the war. These people sent men, food, and supplies to the Confederacy for years. They were left without enough manpower to operate their farms or feed their families. When hard-pressed Confederate authorities demanded even more men and provisions from them, they resisted. Some sought an immediate end to the war, if possible by an honorable peace.

The bitterness felt by Union supporters and those determined not to go or return to the Southern armies led to deadly battles against Confederate sympathizers. Cruelty appeared on both sides, leaving deep-seated hatreds that lasted long after the war ended....

Governor Vance, 1867

Both the peace movement and the public’s disaffection with war seriously alarmed Governor Zebulon Vance. He knew that the organizers of the peace movement, led by newspaper editor William W. Holden, were determined to take North Carolina out of the war if they could get enough people to back them. Writing to his friend David L. Swain, president of the University of North Carolina, Vance vowed to resist their efforts. Vance believed Holden’s peace proposals would dishonor the state and lead to “civil war” between North Carolinians and Confederate authorities.

Raleigh, Jany. 2d/64
My dear Sir [David L. Swain],

...It is now a fixed policy of W[illiam] Holden and others to call a convention in May to take N. C. back to the United States, and the agitation has begun. Resolutions, advocating this course, were prepared a few days ago in the Standard office and sent to Johnson [sic] County to be passed at a public meeting next week: and a series of meetings are to be held all over the State.

For any cause now existing or likely to exist, I can never consent to this course. Never. But should it be inevitable and I be unable to prevent it— as I have no right to suppose I could— believing that it would be ruin alike to State and Confederacy, producing war and devastation at home, and that it would steep the name of North Carolina in infamy and make her memory a reproach among the nations, it is my determination to quietly return to the army and find a death which will enable my children to say that their father was not consenting to their degradation. This sounds, no doubt, a little wild and bombastic, not to say foolish, but it is for your eye only....

I will not present the argument, against the proposed proceeding. There is something to be said on both sides. We are sadly pushed to the wall by the enemy on every side it is true. That can be answered by Military men and a reference to history: many peoples have been worse off, infinitely, and yet triumphed. Our finances and other material resources are not worse off than were those of our fathers in 1780–81....Almost every argument can be answered, against the chances of our success, but one. That is, the cries of women and little children for bread! Of all others, that is hardest for a man of humane sentiments to meet, especially when the sufferers rejoin to your appeals to their patriotism, “You Governor have plenty: your children have never felt want.” Still, no great political or moral blessing ever has been or can be attained without suffering. Such is our moral Consititution, that liberty and independence can only be gathered of blood and misery sustained and fostered by devoted patriotism and heroic manhood. This requires a deep hold on the popular heart, and our people will not pay this price I am satisfied for their national independence! I am convinced of it....

My great anxiety now, as I can scarcely hope to avoid the contemplated action of the State, is to avoid civil war and to preserve life and property as far as may be possible....It shall be my aim under God, at all events....

Believe me my dear Sir, very respectfully...yours,
                                                                 Z. B. Vance

(Vance Papers, State Archives, Raleigh.)

The effectiveness of the peace movement largely ended in 1864, when Vance overwhelmingly defeated Holden in the gubernatorial race that focused on the peace issue. Unionists and opponents to Confederate policies, however, remained active in the state until the end of the war.

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They Were There: The Stories Continued

Catherine Ann Devereux Edmondston

Catherine Edmondston noted on January 23, 1863, that she felt "truly blessed" because shortages brought on by the war had affected life at Looking Glass plantation very little, except for the necessity of adding blackberry leaves to the stock of tea, and "the cessation of all desserts but baked Apples." But by the end of the year, her situation had worsened, although the self-sufficiency of the plantation alleviated conditions somewhat. On December 3, 1863, she wrote: "Very busy dying warp for Mr E's & my own clothes. So we have come to it & are to wear our own homespun! In fact I find that most articles of prime neccessity except salt, iron, & paper can be produced at home by us. This ink, for instance, is of my own manufacture & I do not see why it is not as good as the 'boughten' article." Edmondston acknowledged the rapidly deteriorating economic situation in an entry ten days later. She wrote that an acquaintance had paid $750 for a barrel of sugar in Virginia and that her own husband had spent $60 to buy her a pair of French boots, adding, "I consoled myself for the seeming extravagance by resolving to send 12 or 14 lbs of butter to Petersburg where it is from 4 to 5 [dollars] per lb."

Sophia Partridge

Sophia Partridge continued to conduct her school for girls in Raleigh during the war. She directed her students as they gathered items such as jelly, pillows, glass, china, and socks to send to local military hospitals, and she spent time herself sewing and making supplies for sick and wounded soldiers. In a letter written to a friend in late 1861, she described a box of items recently sent by her church to Virginia and continued: "Don't you feel sorry for the sick ones. . . . Does not this war seem a strange thing yet, so unnatural, so barbarous, and uncalled for, and useless, on the part of the Federals. Sometimes I almost forget where I am, thinking upon the future, when the war will close. I begin to think there will be no peace, as long as the Dictator at Washington can get any money to carry it on." As the war progressed, Partridge tried to keep high spirits and a positive attitude, writing in January 1864, "When I begin to feel a little doleful about the state of affairs generally, I go right to the History of the first revolution, and find that we are not in half so bad a condition as our forefathers were, and it brightens everything. You know I am one of the hopeful ones. Hope is strong, and though all is dark around I keep my eye on a bright light in the distance."

Jesse Virgil Dobbins

Jesse Virgil Dobbins did not join the Confederate army when the war broke out in 1861. Nor did he enlist after the draft went into effect in August 1862. Dobbins's Quaker religious beliefs and political feelings did not allow him to support the Confederate war effort. Some people considered Jesse a ringleader of unionist activities in Yadkin County. Fearing arrest by Confederate authorities, Jesse Dobbins, his brother William, and several others decided to leave and join the Union army. They met at the Bond Schoolhouse in February 1863 and engaged in a shoot-out with the Home Guard that left four men dead. Jesse and William fled to Tennessee, where they enlisted in the Federal army. William died of illness in 1864, but Jesse survived and served the remainder of the war in a blue uniform.

Bartlett Yancy Clark

The Confederate army conscripted Bartlett Yancy Clark into service in Company H (Stanly Marksmen), Fourteenth Regiment North Carolina Troops on October 1, 1863. As a Quaker, Clark opposed the war and deserted after only a few days. He was reported absent without leave on October 20, 1863, and had been arrested by October 30. Clark was court-martialed on or about January 8, 1864, and subsequently confined at Salisbury Prison. According to family tradition, he served out his sentence as an orderly in the prison hospital, where he became known as a man who showed great compassion to his guards and all prisoners, Confederates and Federals alike.

Related Web Sites

Confederate Home Front
http://www.civilwarpoetry.org/confederate/homefront/index.html
A collection of poetry about life on the homefront during the Civil War.

Forget-Me-Nots of the Civil War: A Romance, Containing Reminiscences and Original Letters of Two Confederate Soldiers
http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/battle/lee.html
A detailed story of life in North Carolina during the Civil War by Laura Elizabeth Lee Battle.

Fort Macon as a Shelter for Buffaloes
http://www.clis.com/friends/bufffaloes.htm
Information on Buffaloes in North Carolina.

Hearts at Home: Southern Women in the Civil War 
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/exhibits/hearts/ 
A site from the University of Virginia Library that provides information on women's lives during the turbulent Civil War years. 

Women's Revolt in Rowan County
http://www.civilwarhistory.com/_/Cover%20Page%20WOMEN'S%20REVOLT%20IN%20ROWAN%20COUNTY%20-%20Spring%20'99%20Columbiad%20Feature.htm
An article by Chris Graham, former curator at the N.C. Museum of History, detailing a bread riot in which a group of women from Salisbury, desperate to feed themselves and their families, stormed the stores of merchants who the women suspected of speculating.

Not Just a Man’s War: Women in the American Civil War 1861-65
http://score.rims.k12.ca.us/activity/manswar/index.html
A detailed Internet lesson plan about women in the Civil War; includes good list of links for further research. 

The Southern Homefront, 1861–1865: Collection of Electronic Texts
http://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/texts.html
Documenting the American South, a project of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries, comprises a wide variety of texts, from legal documents and diaries to speeches and sermons. 

Union Regimental Histories: North Carolina
http://www.civilwararchive.com/Unreghst/unnctr.htm
Brief histories of the state’s eight Union regiments.

War Days in Fayetteville, North Carolina: Reminiscences of 1861 to 1865
http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/chapter/chapter.html
Memoirs and poems by different women of the J. E. B. Stuart Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, published 1910.

Assignment 3: Life on the Home Front

Complete one of the following assignments:

Option 1:
Research what daily life was like for North Carolinians during the Depression. Write a brief essay comparing hardships faced during the Civil War with those encountered during the Depression, including how the average North Carolinian dealt with those difficulties. Submit your completed essay via e-mail to jessica.humphries@ncmail.net.

Option 2:
Why teach about the Civil War home front? Outline why you think teaching about this aspect of the Civil War is important and what you believe should be included (types of facts, historical and social lessons, etc.). Post your response on the workshop’s Bulletin Board.

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