Southern Belles

DanB

Corporal
Joined
Nov 3, 2011
Location
St. Augustine, FL
I looked around and didn't see this thread, so here it is. . .

So, who were the southern hotties? I've found a few and would like to see who you guys thought should be added to the list.

Hetty Cary, She smuggled herself and her sister, Jenny, out of Baltimore. Later, the two girls and their cousin, Constance, made the first Confederate Battle Flags after the Battle of Bull Run. The trio was referred to as the "Cary Invincibles." She is lauded as the most beautiful woman in Richmond and the Confederacy. One person said she looked like she had been made by a sculptor. Auburn hair. Very witty. Men, even married ones, such as James Chestnut, JEB Stuart, and Jefferson Davis flirted with her. Her marriage to General John Pegram in January 1865 was a major social event. He was killed three weeks later.

Jenny Cary, Sister to Hetty Cary. She put "Maryland My Maryland" to music. She helped her sister and cousin sew the first battle flags.

Constance Cary, “Conny.” Cousin of Hetty and Jenny Cary. She was effective with a pen and often entertained her friends with her art. She became an author after the war.

Louise Wigfall, Daughter of Louis Wigfall. Mary Chestnut said she was a very lovely girl (unlike her dad, who wasn't a very lovely anything, right Nate?)

Mary Whitaker Boykin Mary Chestnut’s cousin. Chestnut calls her “Mary Hammy” to distinguish her from all the other Marys in the family. She had a lot of outings with the likes of Custis Lee and John Bell Hood, though she had a fiance in the army.

Mary Randolph- Secretary of War George Randolph's wife. Mary Chestnut is always talking about how beautiful she is.
 
I looked around and didn't see this thread, so here it is. . .

So, who were the southern hotties? I've found a few and would like to see who you guys thought should be added to the list.

Louise Wigfall, Daughter of Louis Wigfall. Mary Chestnut said she was a very lovely girl (unlike her dad, who wasn't a very lovely anything, right Nate?).

She will definitely agree with you on ol' Louis T.
 
Louise Wigfall, Daughter of Louis Wigfall. Mary Chestnut said she was a very lovely girl (unlike her dad, who wasn't a very lovely anything, right Nate?)

You know me so well. :smile: She actually was quite lovely. I have a framed mini-watercolor of the Texas Brigade Flag, with portraits of her and Hood, and a letter he wrote to her.

Proves genetics aren't everything. :smile:
 
I really am a girl....despite what some folks have accused me of....but I'd like to nominate Adelicia Acklen of Nashville. Beautiful and rich and very, very smart.

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Mary Custis Lee with Robert Jr. ...
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Okay, I know that it was standard in that era to put all toddlers--male and female--in gowns. Probably something to do with diaper changes. But those curls on Robert Jr???? Maybe that's why the males of that era were so quick to challenge perceived insults or to demonstrate bravery; they felt the unconscious need to prove their manliness after a childhood in dresses and curlers.
 
I vote for Harriet Wood (alias Pauline Cushman)
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and Mary Elizabeth Bowser (a.k.a. Mary Jane Richards)
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(Both were southern women who served as Union spies. :sneaky:)
 
I recently read the "journal" or diary Brokenburn, re-worked postwar by its author Kate Stone. ( Brokenburn was the name of the family plantation; the book is really neither a journal nor a diary. ) She was a Louisiana planter's daughter in her early 20's during the war, from 'The Bend", as they called Milliken's Bend across the Mississippi from Vicksburg. Her widowed mother sent most of their 100+ slaves ahead and then took the family overland to East Texas as Grant's army committed depredations on neighboring plantations in the early stages of the Vicksburg Campaign. After various vicissitudes they finally arrived at Tyler, Texas, where she "joined up" with local belle Mollie Moore and apparantly together they dominated the attentions of all the local swains. ( Tyler was a Confederate "metropolis" boasting some small manufactures dedicated to war production as well as the largest military prison west of the Mississippi. ) Later-life pictures don't reflect too well on Mollie, but Kate looks like she was probably a beautiful young woman.
 
These are good. I've looked all over for images of Mary Randolph, but haven't seen any. Mrs. Chestnut just goes on and on about her: "The men rave over Mrs. Randolph's beauty; called her a magnificent specimen of the finest type of dark-eyed, rich, and glowing Southern woman-kind. Clear brunette she is, with the reddest lips, the whitest teeth, and glorious eyes; there is no other word for them." She then declares her "the prize among southern beauties." This is quite the statement seeing Chestnut also knew Hetty Cary, said to be the most beautiful woman in Richmond, if not the South.
 
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