CHAPTER II. SOUTHERN WOMEN IN THE CIVIL WAR.

[SYNOPSIS OF AN ADDRESS DELIVERED in Augusta, Ga, on invitation of United Daughters of Confederacy in year 1900.]

“The pleasing introduction to which I have listened this evening was delightful to me, and will be long remembered. To one like myself, going down the sunset slope of life, such kind words are like cooling drinks in the heat of the day, and will remain with me to keep this visit in sweet remembrance.

“I would be glad if I had the time to tell you what I have gathered concerning Georgia women in Revolutionary periods. I could present you with some of our Colonial women who were noble patriots. I am tempted to recite what I know from early Georgia history of Mary Musgrove, known in General Oglethorpe’s time as the Empress of the Creek Nation. Her father had two children, a son and daughter, and he made choice of the latter as the reigning sovereign of the then powerful Creek Indians.

“She had frequent dealings with General Oglethorpe as a ruling chieftainess. She drew a pension of $500 from the British Government for many years before her death. In a settlement with the whites she was allowed three Islands on the seacoast of Georgia, two of which her last husband sold for $10,000 in solid cash. She was given at another time $3,000 in gold. Mary died on St. Catherine’s Island and her dwelling was standing as late as 1820. Mary’s weak point was matrimony. Every venture she made was only fairly good, then bad and then worse. Her latest spouse was an Episcopal clergyman who came out with General Oglethorpe and who urged Mary to press her claims as an Indian Empress to the limit. When Mary was sober she refused to follow the preacher. When she was full of rum she made a fool of herself as generally happens.

Nevertheless there was in her the making of a great woman. She is the most prominent figure in General Oglethorpe’s time, save this great English lord who first settled in Georgia.

I might tell you a good deal about Nancy Hart, the revolutionary patriot, in the early settling of Eastern Georgia. She made her mark in brave, bold, strong lines. She was a terror to the Tory factions of that stormy time. One biographer says Nancy was crosseyed and loved her dram. She could be all that is charged against her, and still be superior to her ill-natured biographer, who was doubtless a woman hater. Nancy could handle a gun with the best marksmen of her time. She did defend a fort filled with women and children while the men of the neighborhood were chasing Indians and catching up with Tories. She loaded the cannon in the fort and when she discovered a sorry fellow in hiding she brought him out and put him behind the cannon to obey orders or she would give him what he deserved as a slacker.

One critic says: “Nancy was a honey of a patriot, but a d-l of a wife.” Nevertheless Nancy raised a large family of children and only moved westward when game became scarce in the rich bottom lands of the Savannah river.

Nancy enjoys the very notable distinction of being the only Georgia woman who has had a county in Georgia named after her. True it is, she married a Hart, yet it was Nancy who captured Tories and drove them to the camps of the patriots. Hart county should have been called Nancy Hart county.

Before I begin to tell you what I personally knew of Southern women in the Civil War, I shall tell you something about a class of women who lived in plantation homes, and who belonged there, and who raised families and whose work in the fields and the kitchen, in the loom-house and the dwelling, that we occupied in the Southern States, and who richly deserve honorable mention, and who contributed mightily to the maintenance of the struggling Confederacy during four years of bloody warfare.

I allude to the colored women, who were the cooks, the nurses and the main reliance of the white women in their arduous duties and unremitting struggle of the early 60s, where numbers were to be fed and clothed, nursed and protected, both black and white.

It was a marvel, an enigma in abolition latitudes, that the slaves did not rise en-masse, at the beginning of hostilities. They marvelled, still that they did not, as did the Israelites when Pharoah was buried under the waters of the Red Sea. When the Federal armies encircled the Confederacy and every day’s supply became scarcer and more difficult to gather, and the cordon was drawn closer in and raids were always threatened and many times were experienced, it was astonishing that the slave population did not refuse to serve and become unmanageable to their owners. They could have “despoiled the Egyptians,” and yet strange to say great numbers were not only anxious to stay with their white folks when the surrender came, and did stay after emancipation and was a fact beyond dispute. In getting close to my subject I cannot omit the part that thousands of these colored women carried on in perfect or apparent harmony with their mistresses in the big house, the business of those households.

I was born and raised in Georgia. My active life has been linked with the fortunes and misfortunes of my native state. I was raised with the servants that were in my home when I was born. My nurse, Agnes, was given to my mother by her parents to be my nurse. I loved her dearly and she often gave proof of her love for me. When she took unto herself a husband he lived on another plantation and came to see her every Saturday night with a pass. When she became the mother of several children and her husband’s master would not sell Tom at any price, Agnes told us she would like to go with her husband, and she did go (at a sacrifice) to oblige her. But when I married Agnes came to me and begged that I should buy her and her family. She loved me so well that she was willing to go anywhere to live near me. The affection was strong on both sides, but there was more money at stake than I could command.

My sister’s nurse came to her in the same way. Minerva took to herself a husband in the family at home. They had their cabin and a big wedding as a starter in married life. To the day of her death she was equally devoted to my sister and I am going to say in this connection, that the strong affection that existed between the whites and blacks will give the answer to the question. “Why did not the negroes rise and struggle for freedom when the Federal armies were pressing the Confederacy to the walls?” As I stand in this presence and measure my words in the sight of Heaven, I believe we owe the security of Confederate homes to the affection that prevailed between those who had lived together so long and the confidence that both had in each other.

When the majority of white men were in the army and plantations were crowded with slaves large and small, there were fewer disturbances than occurred before or since the Civil War. I recall my black mammy who belonged to my father, a childless black woman, a cripple from white swelling since she was eleven years old, who was the most capable and satisfactory house servant with whom I have been associated during my long life. My first recollections are of Mammy. I remember a little stool in her cabin that was kept for my use. I can see in memory a little child intent on learning things Mammy could teach her, to knit, to sew, to card cotton rolls, and trying to do what Mammy did. I never heard an ugly word from her lips. I never heard my parents utter a cross word to her. I can still see the walls in her cabin festooned with strings of red pepper, bachelor buttons and ropes of chips of yellow pumpkin. Her small looking glass was encircled with cedar twigs that had been dipped in flour and the happy child would fall asleep in Mammy’s lap and take a nap on Mammy’s clean bed when the housefolks were gone to town or off on a visit, or at church. I have never eaten anything more appetizing than Mammy’s cooking where we ate together.

The best that I had was shared with her and her husband, Uncle Sam, on Saturday nights always brought chestnuts, chinquapins, red apples or bird’s eggs and such like and placed them in the “till” of Mammy’s chest, and there I was sure to find them on those delightful visits to Mammy’s cabin. I had some temper then and later on, and one time I got impatient and slapped Mammy. I knew I had committed a serious offense but I was too stubborn to say so. I went to the big house, crept into my little bed and suffered as I deserved to suffer until Mammy came in, to get her orders for next morning’s breakfast, and broke the news of my late insurrection to my mother. I was glad. I wanted to get it done and over with. I had to beg Mammy’s pardon, and also have her hug me once again to her bosom in token of a better peace.

To her dying day she was a true and faithful friend. These personal allusions will, I hope, illustrate what I have intended to convey at this time. When Mammy’s lame leg made an invalid of her, her meals were always sent from the table and arranged by my mother’s hands. Her clothing was good and made for her regularly. She knew she would be cared for and was grateful for the affectionate kindness. Kindness begot kindness and I do not believe any living human could have persuaded Mammy to consent to an injury for those she had loved so well.