They Also Served
Wives of Civil War Generals
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About the Book
Celebrating his first night in the President’s House, John Adams offered the following toast, “May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this house.” To which his wife Abigail replied, “Remember the ladies." It is hoped that this modest work, which we have entitled “They Also Served”, will shed new light on the lives of the remarkable women who shared the history of this terrible time along with their warrior husbands. We have gathered these stories from various sources including books, magazines, the Internet, and several archival collections. A conscientious effort has been made to insure the information used in the telling of these stories has not only been accurate, but also fully documented. After Fort Sumter, the men left in droves obeying the call of their governments to serve with the armies being formed, not to return for years or at all. The glamorous picture of the brave men riding off to war is a popular one, however, it remained for the wives to take up the many burdens their departures left behind. Overnight, wives became heads of family with sole responsibility for maintaining home and hearth. Most were completely unschooled in managing household finances or supervising plantation or farm laborers. Alone, they bore the deaths of their children and suffered the shock of news from the front that their husbands had been killed or captured.
And so, we have heeded the admonition of the remarkable Abigail and hope this book will help in “Remembering the Ladies”
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYINGRita M. Bean, Professor of Education, University of Pittsburgh
In this book, Wilson & Clair describe the lives of 33 women who were wives of Civil War Generals. The title of the book, They Also Served, reveals a great deal about the viewpoints of the authors as they tell the tales of these remarkable women and their lives. Fundamentally, they demonstrated that the strength, courage, tenacity, and love of these women were influential in how their husbands lived and performed their duties.
Many of these women actively lived with their husbands at their postings, often putting themselves in danger. For example, Fanny Haralson Gordon, wife of Major General John Brown Gordon, left her two sons with grandparents and followed her husband to the front lines. When he was wounded at the Battle of Sharpsburg (Antietam), she cared for him during his recovery. Indeed, he claimed that he owed his life to her nursing.
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About the Author
Robert M. Wilson In 1938 his father took him to the last gathering of Civil War veterans at Gettysburg. The interest created there never left him. His professional career took him onto the path of teacher education and he was a professor at the University of Maryland for 30 years. But his Civil War interests never left him and he took part in the formation of the Civil War Round Table. With that group he was able to travel to nearly all of the Civil War sites East of the Mississippi. At Maryland he was the director of a Women’s Equity Grant and had his eyes opened to the treatment of women in history Thus alerted he turned to the treatment of women in the Civil War literature. It seemed that it would be worth the effort to bring some of those women’s stories to the front. Carl Clair Carl holds BA and MA degrees in History and Political Science from the University of Connecticut. He served for over 30 years as an Air Force and National Security Agency intelligence officer. In retirement, his interest turned to the Civil War and he is currently president of the "Skedaddlers", a small, traveling Round Table group. In this capacity, he has been a frequent visitor to various battle fields and associated libraries. Three years studying the role of women in the Civil War led to this work. He lives in Laurel, Maryland.