Continuing in my march through Bell Irwin Wiley’s social histories of the Civil War,   I bought Confederate Women immediately after reading Billy Yank.    Confederate Women looks at the diaries and letters of three socially prominent southern belles and finished with a fourth section on those whose blood ran less azure. Although Wiley has written elsewhere about how strongly southern women supported the war effort materially – sewing clothes and that sort of thing – his three women cataloged are evident exceptions, as they appear to spend most of their time living in a Jane Austen novel, attending social events and talking. This was a fun read, though I wish its fourth section were the main of the book.  

The first chapter is drawn from the wartime diary of Mary Chestnut, which was later published as A Diary from Dixie. Wiley comments on the diary’s issue-laden publication: not only  did Chestnut censor herself to a degree after she began thinking she might publish it, but the diary was later revised by Chestnut herself in the postwar years, and then further changed by an editor to make it more ‘readable’.  These edits, however, were deeper than line-editing:  not surprisingly,  a book published after her death during the bourbon restoration period of Southern history  contained omissions of her criticism of slavery,  as well as minor related edits. She declared of one man whom she disdained that he could always be found in the company of a looking glass, a whisky bottle, or a Negro woman;  later editions simply referred to a bottle or a woman. (I am not sure that omitting whisky would have any effect at all: no one reads a phrase as that and thinks  the man was nursing a bottle of milk or apple juice!)  Chesnut’s husband was an aide to President Jefferson Davis, so she spends time in both Richmond and Montgomery and was on close social terms with a later subject of the book, Varina Davis. 

The second subject is easily the most forgettable, as she spends the war moving from friend’s home to friend’s home as a refugee, gossiping all the while.  The third main section concludes with Varina Davis, and because most of her letters have not survived – she deliberately destroyed her intimate correspondence with her husband – it’s based on more secondary sources.  In my past reading I have only encountered Davis as president,  typically having issues with his generals: it’s interesting to meet him here as a man, one who was described as hard as flint outside the home but soft as molten wax before his wife.  He was widowed early by another woman, evidently, and withdrew from society to fuss about on his farm and hole up in his brother’s library reading:  it was meeting  Varina that drew him out into society again, and based on her portrait I cannot blame him. I enjoyed this chapter on Varina: while she did her best to be a proper lady of society and First Lady of the Confederacy, she had an easy sense of humor that led to some social gaffes, like guffawing over mistakes instead of cooing sympathetically. 

The fourth part, which merits and receives a larger portion than the individual subjects preceding it, covers women in general during the war.  Wiley notes that Confederate women were extremely passionate about the Cause, urging their men – husbands and sons – to enlist. One woman lost nine sons to the war. Wiley cites one woman in my own hometown who sent a  young lad who was slow to enlist a petticoat, along with the instructions to wear these if he did not wish to serve.  They were also instrumental to wartime production, sometimes being responsible for their boys’ uniforms. Households in areas as yet untouched by Yankee marauders could also send boxes of food (cured meat, bread, &c), at least until transportation broke down in late 1864.  The aforementioned women were not good illustrations of this, as they seemed to principally occupy themselves attending parties and talking – though they had plenty of zeal for the Cause.  Women took over the administration of their home farms or plantations themselves,  and without their men found that the workload was onerous indeed: those who lived near the front often found what little they had stolen by both Union and Confederate troops, and those women who lived in areas that Federal raiders were savaging often fled if they could.  Casual, senseless violence – the destruction of clothes and household goods, even the molestation of women – was all too common, and it was not restricted to confirmed “rebel” families:  Wiley records Yankee troopers pillaging slave cabins and raping women there, as well.   This section ends with Wiley observing that the Civil War changed relations between men and women,  leading to more overall agency for women and a slight softening of the patriarchy. This final section is broad, covering all classes and races as best it can given the lack of documentation on poorer black and white women.

This was an interesting collection, though the last section was easily the best. I enjoyed Chestnut and Davis’ sections well enough, especially seeing as I’ve intended on reading A Diary from Dixie at some point and appreciate knowing that parts of it are suspect. I could have done with much less social chatter and more of the content that arrives last, but on the whole this was an illuminating little read.

Quotations

The Sandusky, Ohio, Register of December 12, 1864, reported: ‘*One day last week one of the rebel officers . . . [imprisoned on] Johnson’s Island gave birth to a ‘bouncing boy.’ This is the first instance of the father giving birth to a child, that we have heard of . . . tis [also] the first case of a woman in rebel service that we have heard of, though they are noted for goading their own men in[to] the army, and for using every artifice . . . to befog and befuddle some of our men.’’!

On August 29, 1861, Mary Chesnut noted in her diary: *‘ All manner of things . . . come over the border under the huge hoop skirts now worn… . Not legs but arms are looked for under hoops.’’

‘There were just not enough daylight hours . . . for her to do all the tasks that must be done and still cultivate her crop. She would get all the children to bed . . . and then go out to the fields to work at night by the light of the moon.’’?

Captain Charles Wills of an Illinois regiment wrote from near Oxford, Mississippi, in December 1862: ‘‘Rebels though they are, ’tis shocking and enough to make one’s blood boil to see the manner in which some of our folks have treated them. Trunks have been knocked to pieces with muskets when the women stood by, offering the keys . . . bed clothing and ladies’ clothing carried off and all manner of deviltry imaginable perpetrated. Of course the scoundrels who do this kind of work would be severely punished if caught, but the latter is almost impossible. Most of the mischief is done by the advance of the army… . the d——d thieves even steal from the Negroes!’’

“ A Wisconsin corporal wrote at the conclusion of Sherman’s March to the Sea’ in December 1864: ‘‘The cruelties practiced on the campaign toward citizens have been enough to blot a more sacred cause than ours. We hardly deserve success. . . . Straggler’s under nobody’s charge . . . ransack the houses, taking every knife and fork, spoon, or anything else they take a fancy to, break open trunks and bureaus, taking women or children’s clothing, or tearing them to pieces. . . besides taking everything eatable that can be found. . . . there is certainly a lack of discipline in our army.’’