Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas

[18thVirginia]

Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas was born into one of the wealthiest families in Georgia in 1834. Her father, Turner Clanton, left an estate valued at $2.5 million in 1864. A former Georgia legislator, he owned 6 plantations, city lots, many slaves, stocks and bonds. Her father recognized Gertrude's intellectual abilities, her love of reading and writing and sent her to the Wesleyan Female Academy in Macon, Georgia.

What sets Gertrude (the name she was known by during her life) apart from other planter's daughters and wives is the journal which she kept for 40 years, beginning at age 14. Many of the Civil War diaries of upper class Southern women are those of girls and sometimes seem frivolous, but Gertrude's covered childbirths, deaths of her children (she bore 10 of whom 6 lived), loss of her family money and bankruptcy, as well as events of the Civil War. She is considered the second best diarist of the era, after Mary Chesnut, although I'd put her writings above that of the South Carolina chronicler of the political circles in Richmond, as it gives insights into the daily lives of women of the era.

At age 17, she married James Jefferson Thomas and she and her new husband settled down to the life of planters on a plantation near Augusta owned by her father. Thomas proved to be a terrible businessman and an alcoholic--their fortunes were far worse off during the aftermath of the Civil War than many other planters due to his numerous loans and business failures. Gertrude, who'd lived in one of the finest houses in Augusta in her wealthy childhood of leisure, would end up renting that house from her father's estate and taking in boarders. She would also start a school in her home and at one point, taught public school students.

Her diary was only made available by her family the 1950s and wasn't published until much later. It's now available http://www.amazon.com/dp/0807842737/?tag=civilwartalkc-20

 

[18thVirginia]

An excerpt from the Gertrude Thomas diary:

Excerpts from the Journal of Gertrude Thomas
Gertrude Thomas

1865

Monday, May 29, 1865. Out of all our old house servants not one remains except Patsey and a little boy, Frank. We have one of our servants Uncle Jim to take Daniel's place as driver and butler and a much more efficient person he proves to be. Nancy has been cooking since Tamah left. On last Wednesday I hired a woman to do the washing. Thursday I expected Nancy to iron but she was sick. In the same way she was sick the week before when there was ironing to do. I said nothing but told Patsey to get breakfast. After it was over I assisted her in wiping the breakfast dishes, a thing I never remember to have done more than once or twice in my life. I then thoroughly cleaned up the sitting room and parlour… In the afternoon I went in the ironing room and in to see Nancy. The clothes were all piled upon a table, the flies swarming over them. The room looking as if it had not been cleaned up in several weeks. Nancy's room was in just the same state. I asked her "if she was not well enough to sprinkle some of the clothes." "No" she replied "she was not well enough to do anything." Said I, "Nancy do you expect I can afford to pay you wages in your situation, support your two children and then have you sick as much as you are?" She made no reply and I came in.

The next morning after Patsey had milked the cow & had fire made in the kitchen, she [Nancy] volunteered to cook breakfast—Immediately after breakfast as I was writing by the window Turner directed my attention to Nancy with her two children, Hannah and Jessy, going out of the gate. I told him to enquire "where she was going." She had expected to leave with flying colours but was compelled to tell a falsehood for she replied "I will be back directly." I knew at once that she surprised when I went into her room sometime afterwards to find that all of her things had been removed. I was again engaged in housework most of the morning…

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/excerpts-from-the-journal-of-gertrude-thomas/

 

[18thVirginia]

Susan, Kate's nurse, Ma's most trusty servant, her advisor, right hand woman and best liked house servant has left her. I am under too many obligations to Susan to have harsh feelings toward her. During six confinements Susan has been with me, the best of servants, rendering the most efficient help. To Ma she has always been invaluable and in case of sickness there was no one like Susan. Her husband Anthony was one of the first to leave the Cumming Plantation and incited others to do the same. I expect he Influences Susan, altho have often heard Pa say that in case of a revolt among Negroes he thought that Susan would prove a ringleader. Aunt Vilet the cook a very excellent one at that left Sunday night. She was a plantation servant during her young days and another favorite of Ma's. Palmer the driver left the same morning with Susan, remained longer than anyone expected that he would. He is quite a Beau Brummell as he gallants a coloured demoiselle or walks up the street with his cigar in his mouth. … Yesterday numbers of the negro women some of them quite black were promenading up the streets with black lace veil shading them from the embrowning rays of a sun under whose influence they had worked all their life… On Thursday Rev Dr Finch of the Federal Army addressed the citizens on the subject of their late slaves and Saturday addressed the Negroes at the parade ground on their duty. I think now they have the Negroes free they don't know what to do with them—

Belmont, Monday, June 12, 1865. I must confess to you my journal that I do most heartily dispise Yankees, Negroes and everything connected with them. The theme has been sung in my hearing until it is a perfect abomination—I positively instinctively shut my ears when I hear the hated subject mentioned and right gladly would I be willing never to place my eyes upon another as long as I live. Everything is entirely reversed. I feel no interest in them whatever and hope I never will—

http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/excerpts-from-the-journal-of-gertrude-thomas/

 

[18thVirginia]

In her later life, Gertrude Thomas became involved in women's volunteer activities like the UDC, the WCTU, and suffrage organizations. She began writing articles for local publications and although generally for free, these satisfied the need for recognition of her writing skills which she'd always hoped for. At some point, she stopped the journal writing, but kept scrapbooks of newspaper articles from her published writing and news about the organizations she was part of.

Carolyn Newton Curry was able to view the scrapbooks as well as the diary in the 30 years of researching Thomas's life as she raised her own family. Her biography of Gertrude Thomas, Suffer and Grow Strong: The Life of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, 1834-1907 is available here http://www.amazon.com/dp/0881464740/?tag=civilwartalkc-20.

 

[18thVirginia]

May 17, 1865
Journal Entry on Jefferson Davis in Augusta as Prisoner
Gertrude Thomas recorded the passage of former Confederate president Jefferson Davis through Augusta as prisoner:

"… Coming home from church, I saw Major Sibley. He told me that Jeff Davis had been captured in Early County [actually Irwin County] on his way to Florida. Mr. Thomas and I were resting after dinner when Patsey came running in in great excitement, telling us that a fight was expected down the street that if anyone wished to go down town they must go on Broad instead of Greene St, that Jeff Davis was in town and a large crowd had gathered. Jeff Davis in Augusta and a prisoner. This was indeed the crowning point, the climax of our downfall. I buried my face on the pillow and wept bitterly… . Sunday night after Jeff Davis passed through we were seated in the piazzi. Tea being announced to be ready Mr Thomas called Jeff [their son] , and added 'Come Jeff Davis, we will give you that name. It is all we can do in honor of Davis.' 'Very well,' said I 'it may be so since you propose it.' This addition to his name was given under almost as solemn circumstances as he received the name of Jeff Thomas. I jestingly remarked that it might hereafter retard his political career… ."

Six years later, Mrs. Thomas would have occasion to meet Jefferson Davis and introduce his namesake to him.

Source: Virginia Ingraham Burr (ed.), The Secret Eye: The Journal of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, 1848-1889 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), pp. 268-269.
http://georgiainfo.galileo.usg.edu/...try-on-jefferson-davis-in-augusta-as-prisoner

 

[18thVirginia]

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=81464136

 

[18thVirginia]

[May 8, 1865] "Hereafter I shall put my Journal in a safe place for I intend to express myself fearlessly and candidly upon all points. Last week was the turning point, the crisis with me. 'The flood which taken at the tide' would have led to feelings of union brotherhood and kindly feeling – Today I am more intensely opposed to the Norththan at any period of the war – We have been imposed upon – led to believe that terms of Treaty had been agreed upon which would secure to us a lasting and honourable peace....Mr. T. [her husband] appeared cast down, utterly spirit broken yesterday when the news [of emancipation] first reaching him and when I would hint at a brighter sky would mock at such anticipations...and was astonished at the buoyancy of temperament which would permit me to indulge in anticipations founded upon such a plan, but I cannot say 'Why art thou cast down oh my soul?' for indeed I am not cast down. On the contrary I am not the person to permit pecuniary loss to afflict me as long as I have health and energy. As to the emancipation of the Negroes, while there is of course a natural dislike to the loss of so much property in my inmost soul I cannot regret it – I always felt that there was a great responsibility – It is in some degree a great relief to have this feeling removed. For the Negroes I know that I have the kindest possible feeling – For the Yankees who deprive us of them I have no use whatever. I only hope I shall see very little of them – Yesterday Mr. Thomas unfastened Turner's [their son] battle flag from the staff and I will put it away as a memento of the time when he was a marker in the Wheeler Dragoons. Who knows, perhaps someday it may be used again."*

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/letters/model2.html

 

[18thVirginia]

http://historymatters.gmu.edu/mse/letters/model2.html

Jefferson Thomas, husband of Gertrude Thomas in his Civil War uniform. J. Thomas only served for 9 months and then came home and stayed, bought a substitute, joined a Home Guard unit. In her diary, Gertrude Thomas seemed somewhat embarrassed at his lack of service.

After the War, he rode every year in parades remembering the Confederacy, wearing his uniform.

 

[18thVirginia]

With 24 rooms, the Clanton Mansion in Augusta, Georgia was said to have cost $50,000 when it was built by Gertrude's father, Turner Clanton, in the 1840s.

 

[18thVirginia]

Author Carolyn Curry talking about her book, Suffer and Grow Strong. I heard Dr. Curry speak and she's an interesting author.

 

[Northern Light]

I found her reaction to the end of slavery interesting. She doesn't whine about the work, but instead relieved that she no longer has the responsibility of their care. I am not quite sure what to make of this. I imagine I would need to know more of how she interacted with her slave to understand this sentence.

 

[18thVirginia]

From what I've read in Carolyn Curry's book and some excerpts from the diary itself, Thomas expresses ambivalence about slavery various times in her diary. She's no abolitionist and expresses fairly typical **** leanings at times, but she makes statements that are quite different than most planter's wives and daughters of her class about slavery. She did read Uncle Tom's Cabin and another abolitionist work by a woman.

She disagreed with her husband about pregnant women who were slaves, believing they should be released from the fields near the end of their pregnancies, while he wanted them to keep working.

It is likely that Gertrude's husband had a slave mistress and apparently she hints at such. She makes statements where she lays blame upon the white males and not the slave women--again somewhat unusual for her class and time. She's pretty vehement at one point, "Southern women are I believe at heart all abolitionists but then I expect I have made a very broad assertion but I will stand to the assertion that the institution of slavery degrades the white man more than the Negro and oh exerts a most deleterious effect on our children." Suffer and Grow Strong, p. 68.

 

[18thVirginia]

I found her reaction to the end of slavery interesting. She doesn't whine about the work, but instead relieved that she no longer has the responsibility of their care. I am not quite sure what to make of this. I imagine I would need to know more of how she interacted with her slave to understand this sentence.

Here's something that Gertrude Thomas told her diary after secession:

The view has gradually become fixed in my mind that slavery is not right. To hold men and women in perpetual bondage is wrong.

Another time she said:

I do think that if we had the same amount invested in something else as means of support I would willingly, nay gladly, have the responsibility of them taken off my shoulders.

https://books.google.com/books?id=j...=onepage&q=gertrude thomas on slavery&f=false

 

[Allie]

From what I've read in Carolyn Curry's book and some excerpts from the diary itself, Thomas expresses ambivalence about slavery various times in her diary. She's no abolitionist and expresses fairly typical **** leanings at times, but she makes statements that are quite different than most planter's wives and daughters of her class about slavery. She did read Uncle Tom's Cabin and another abolitionist work by a woman.

She disagreed with her husband about pregnant women who were slaves, believing they should be released from the fields near the end of their pregnancies, while he wanted them to keep working.

It is likely that Gertrude's husband had a slave mistress and apparently she hints at such. She makes statements where she lays blame upon the white males and not the slave women--again somewhat unusual for her class and time. She's pretty vehement at one point, "Southern women are I believe at heart all abolitionists but then I expect I have made a very broad assertion but I will stand to the assertion that the institution of slavery degrades the white man more than the Negro and oh exerts a most deleterious effect on our children." Suffer and Grow Strong, p. 68.

Mary Chesnut made a similar remark that all women were abolitionists at heart. I'm reminded of something Douglas Adams said in a book, that you can sit on a horse all day and never wonder what it's thinking, but it's not so easy to be sat on without wondering what the person doing the sitting is thinking. Both slaves and slaveholders's wives, who had limited rights in that era, were getting sat on by the same people, which creates a natural alliance.

 

[RobertP]

Mary Chesnut made a similar remark that all women were abolitionists at heart. I'm reminded of something Douglas Adams said in a book, that you can sit on a horse all day and never wonder what it's thinking, but it's not so easy to be sat on without wondering what the person doing the sitting is thinking. Both slaves and slaveholders's wives, who had limited rights in that era, were getting sat on by the same people, which creates a natural alliance.

My g-grandmother was a teenager during the war. Their place was in north Louisiana and after the fall of Vicksburg they joined a group of families evacuating to the safety of Texas. She said about her mother in a memoir written late in her life, "She left them clothed if not in their right minds. She never saw them again for the Emancipation Proclamation made it unnecessary for her to be troubled with them again. She said many times that the manifesto freed her along with the slaves."

 

[18thVirginia]

How many slaves did they own, RobertP?

Because it has seemed to me in reading a lot about plantation mistresses that those with smaller numbers of slaves had a lot more work--they were busy knitting socks, cutting out clothes for everyone, sewing, as well as teaching children, supervising the gardening, the pig slaughtering, meal preparation etc., etc. I'd think these women were better able to manage a new life where they had to depend on wage paid servants or themselves and their children, than those like Gertrude Thomas whose family owned 393 slaves during her childhood.

 

[Allie]

How many slaves did they own, RobertP?

Because it has seemed to me in reading a lot about plantation mistresses that those with smaller numbers of slaves had a lot more work--they were busy knitting socks, cutting out clothes for everyone, sewing, as well as teaching children, supervising the gardening, the pig slaughtering, meal preparation etc., etc. I'd think these women were better able to manage a new life where they had to depend on wage paid servants or themselves and their children, than those like Gertrude Thomas whose family owned 393 slaves during her childhood.

Imagine the logistics of caring for 395 anything, and it becomes a little more comprehensible that it might be a burden. She may have had help with the housework, but she was basically managing a small town.

 

[RobertP]

How many slaves did they own, RobertP?

Because it has seemed to me in reading a lot about plantation mistresses that those with smaller numbers of slaves had a lot more work -- theywere busy knitting socks, cutting out clothes for everyone, sewing, as well as teaching children,
supervising the gardening, the pig slaughtering, meal preparation etc., etc. I'd think these women were better able to manage a new life where they had to depend on wage paid servants or themselves and their children, than those like Gertrude Thomas whose family owned 393 slaves during her childhood.

They had around 35, best I can tell. My g-grandmother speaks of the time her father was away during the war and leaving her mother to run the place with the help of an overseer. She talks of her mother teaching the women how to weave and sew, how to can and dry and cure, how she set up a day care in where the meals were cooked in her kitchen and taken there. And then there was her own family to take care of: two daughters, and two infant sons both of whom died in 1863 at the ages of 3 and less than a year. Like Gertrude Thomas she bore 10 children but only 5 of hers survived to adulthood. Through her daughter's words you can tell there was a real empathy for the slaves in her care and that she put everything into running the place to the best of her ability, but you can also see that it was a job that she didn't miss when it was all over.

 

[18thVirginia]

Imagine the logistics of caring for 395 anything, and it becomes a little more comprehensible that it might be a burden. She may have had help with the housework, but she was basically managing a small town.

I think that Gertrude's father had six plantations, so all 395 slaves weren't concentrated in one place. It was quite common that a family would own multiple but separate plantations. Gertrude's father had other investments as well, houses and buildings in town that he rented, other businesses, stocks and bonds. Since her sister had married an attorney who'd never farmed, she was given lots in town while Gertrude inherited more farmland. Her inheritance also included 90 slaves, but with the end of the war, the investment in slaves were gone and Gertrude's family would remain land poor for many years.

Her father had set up her land in a trust that couldn't be touched by a husband's creditors, but Gertrude signed over a piece of land to him and Jeff Thomas's creditors were able to whittle away at her inheritance. For all the expertise and success that Gertrude's father, Turner Clanton, possessed in business, Jeff Thomas seemed to continually fail and there were constant lawsuits and their names published in the newspaper for debts.

Reading the story of Gertrude Thomas makes the single-mindedness of Adelicia Acklen and her pre-nups seem more understandable.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

It had to have been maddening to be forced to sand by and watch one's finances- no matter the size, be dissipated by a man who had no business running them. The thing is an awful lot of the fathers in law were successful men in business- the real thing. Persisting in leaving their daughters' futures dependent on men who could not be depended on seems so, so foolish- or at least men they did not know for a fact could be depended on. I know businessmen who can barely stand to allow their next-in-line at the office to handle important matters, much less the future economic welfare of their daughters.

Adelicia sounds like someone invented by a frustrated female writer of the era, doesn't she? Love it she's not- and another pretty awesome movie script.