Category: Women in the Civil War

A Civil War Actress’ Most Daring Role

By David A. Carrino
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2024, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in The Charger in March 2024.

It’s been said that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and this is most definitely true in war. Knowledge of things such as troop strength and position can be very dangerous for the side whose troop strength and position become known to the enemy, and the Civil War provides a number of examples of this. For instance, the fortuitous finding of Robert E. Lee’s Special Orders No. 191, which are now known as Lee’s lost orders, prompted even the glacially slow and agonizingly cautious George McClellan to step out of character and boost his coefficient of aggressiveness, at least until the time that he came to battle. Because of the critical importance of knowledge about the enemy, the Civil War has some instances when clever ruses were employed to deceive the enemy with fake information, such as John Magruder on the York-James Peninsula and Nathan Bedford Forrest at Cedar Bluff, Alabama (and elsewhere).

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When 1 Is Greater Than 620,000

By David A. Carrino
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2024, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in The Charger in January 2024.

Everyone who labored through grade school arithmetic is familiar with the mathematical signs for greater than (>) and less than (<). Students are required to do many simple arithmetic problems just to drill into them what each of those signs means. If students were presented with the equation “1 _ 620,000” and asked to fill in the blank with the correct mathematical sign, they would have to give “<” as the answer in order to be given credit for responding correctly. But in one circumstance, the equation “1 > 620,000” is correct, and that circumstance is hauntingly described in a poem and in a story based on the Civil War.

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The Case of Lucy Bagby: The Last Fugitive Slave

By Brian D. Kowell
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2022, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in The Charger in November 2022.

The saga of Sara Lucinda (“Lucy”) Bagby begins in Richmond, Virginia. In 1850 Virginia’s population of 1.12 million people included 479,000 slaves, seven-year-old Sara Lucinda (“Lucy”) Bagby among them. The slave trade in Virginia was far and away the state’s largest industry, and in Richmond the traffic in slaves surpassed all other areas in the state. In 1850 more than 80,000 men, women, and children were sold in the Virginia slave markets.1

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Famous Women Spies of the Civil War

By Daniel J. Ursu, Roundtable Historian
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2022-2023, All Rights Reserved

Editor’s note: This article was the history brief for the May 2023 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable.

General Longstreet, a corps commander in the Army of Northern Virginia, was well known for having dependable intelligence from Southern spies, for example, in the pivotal Battle of Gettysburg from perhaps his most famous spy, Henry Thomas Harrison, or simply “Harrison” as known in Civil War folklore. Harrison’s work helped crystallize the Confederates’ understanding of Union corps positions and shaped General Lee’s strategic thinking at the Battle of Gettysburg. This led Lee to have his own forces converge in the vicinity of the town of Gettysburg. Longstreet’s use of spies at that battle is arguably even more important, since Jeb Stuart’s cavalry had failed General Lee on his knowledge of Union troop positions. That said, because the May 2023 meeting of the Cleveland Civil War Roundtable featured a presentation that focused on the exploits of women during the Civil War, that meeting was an appropriate time to recall the work of women spies in both the North and South, who were plying their spy craft with sometimes dramatic results. This history brief examines three such famous women.

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Lee’s Daughters, Part 6

By David A. Carrino
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2017, All Rights Reserved

Part 6 of a 6-part article about the daughters of Robert E. Lee

The Lee Family Deprived of Arlington

“The Memories of Those That to Us Rendered It Sacred”

After the Civil War, the Lee family had two significant encounters with Arlington. The first occurred in June 1873, when Mrs. Lee visited the place that had been her home for 53 years, from the day she was born until she was forced to leave it in the face of an imminent occupation by an enemy military force. Mrs. Lee had written to a friend in 1868 of her desire to visit Arlington and acknowledged, “The longing I have to revisit it is almost more than I can endure.”

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Lee’s Daughters, Part 5

By David A. Carrino
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2017, All Rights Reserved

Part 5 of a 6-part article about the daughters of Robert E. Lee

Mildred Childe Lee

Birth and Childhood

Mildred Childe Lee, who was born on February 10, 1846, was the fourth daughter and the seventh and youngest child of Robert E. and Mrs. Lee. Mildred was named after Robert E. Lee’s younger sister, Catherine Mildred (Lee) Childe. At a young age, Mildred displayed such a lively and effervescent personality that Lee nicknamed her Precious Life. Even when Mildred became an adult, Lee referred to Mildred in his letters as Precious Life or sometimes simply as Life. Like her older sisters, Mildred was born at Arlington. At the time of her birth, Lee was stationed at Fort Hamilton in New York City, and he remained there after Mrs. Lee and the children went to Arlington for Mildred’s birth. In a letter that Lee sent to his wife shortly after the family left Fort Hamilton, he wrote about his feelings of separation. “I am very solitary, & my only company is my dog & cats.” Lee did not see his youngest child until several months later when he went to Arlington to rejoin his family. Lee had only a few days to spend with the family’s most recent addition before he departed for Mexico and his first experience in combat.

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Lee’s Daughters, Part 4

By David A. Carrino
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2017, All Rights Reserved

Part 4 of a 6-part article about the daughters of Robert E. Lee

Eleanor Agnes Lee

Birth and Childhood

Eleanor Agnes Lee, the third daughter and fifth child of Robert E. and Mrs. Lee, was born at Arlington on February 27, 1841. She was named after Eleanor (Nelly) Parke Custis Lewis, one of G.W.P. Custis’ sisters. This sister, along with G.W.P. Custis, was adopted by George Washington after the death of their father, John Parke Custis. Throughout her life, Eleanor Agnes Lee went by the name Agnes. Shortly after Agnes’ birth, Lee left for his new assignment in New York City, and the family joined him there a few months later after Mrs. Lee had recovered from the delivery of her latest child. During the family’s stay in New York City, Mrs. Lee wrote in a letter to her mother that young Agnes “scarcely eats enough to keep a new bird alive,” which suggests that Agnes was a fussy eater.

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Lee’s Daughters, Part 3

By David A. Carrino
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2017, All Rights Reserved

Part 3 of a 6-part article about the daughters of Robert E. Lee

Anne Carter Lee

Birth and Childhood

Anne Carter Lee was born on June 15, 1839, the second daughter and fourth child of Robert E. and Mrs. Lee. Annie, as she was called by the members of her family, was named for Robert E. Lee’s mother. In May 1839, the Lee family left St. Louis, which was the location of Lee’s assignment at the time, and traveled to Arlington. Mrs. Lee, who was pregnant with Annie, preferred to give birth there, if only because after the birth of Annie, Mrs. Lee’s parents could help her with the three older children, Custis, Mary, and Rooney. Lee was able to obtain a leave to accompany his family to Arlington, but he soon returned to St. Louis and was not present when Annie was born. He received a letter from his mother-in-law shortly after Annie’s birth, in which he was informed that his second daughter had a prominent reddish birthmark on her face. In his reply, he expressed concern about this and went on to say about the birthmark, “We must endeavor to assist her to veil if not eradicate it by the purity and brightness of her mind.” The method which Lee proposed to deal with the birthmark shows his belief in the power that can be wielded by a vigorous and virtuous intellect. In Lee’s reply to his mother-in-law, he also made a prayer-like statement in which he expressed his hope for the safety of his children. “God grant that they may all be preserved to us.” The way that Lee worded this plea indicates that he wished for his children’s well-being not only for their sake, but also for himself so that he would be able to have them with him for a long time. Lee had no way of knowing that this prayer would not be answered for the latest addition to his family.

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Lee’s Daughters, Part 2

By David A. Carrino
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2017, All Rights Reserved

Part 2 of a 6-part article about the daughters of Robert E. Lee

Mary Custis Lee

Birth and Childhood

Mary Custis Lee, the first daughter and second child of Robert E. and Mrs. Lee, was born on July 12, 1835 in a small room on the second floor of Arlington House. Mary was the first of the Lee children to be born at Arlington, and all of Mary’s five younger siblings were also born there. Mary’s older brother, Custis, was born three years earlier at Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia. This was the location of Robert E. Lee’s military assignment at the time of Custis’ birth, which occurred on September 16, 1832, although Mrs. Lee and her infant son went to Arlington soon after the birth so that Mrs. Lee’s parents could help their daughter with her recovery.

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Lee’s Daughters, Part 1

By David A. Carrino
The Cleveland Civil War Roundtable
Copyright © 2017, All Rights Reserved

Part 1 of a 6-part article about the daughters of Robert E. Lee

The Lee Family and Arlington

Prior to the Civil War, the four daughters of Robert E. and Mary Lee lived idyllic lives in a home with beautifully scenic surroundings, and they looked forward to a tranquil, secure future. All of that changed on April 20, 1861 when their father made a decision that drastically altered the lives of every member of his family. For the next four years Lee’s daughters, like daughters throughout the warring sections of the country, lived lives of sacrifice, hardship, and deep personal loss. When a country engages in war, many if not most people on the home front are adversely affected, particularly for a large-scale war like the Civil War. Such was the case for the women of the Lee family. During the Civil War all four of the men in the Lee family went into combat, but everyone in the Lee family, including the women, went to war. When the war ended, the Lee daughters were without a home and without a future, in one case literally. The lives that the Lee daughters lived after the Civil War in no way resembled their serene pre-war existence.

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