Refugees

[18thVirginia]

A good friend had 14 people from her sister's family who were likely to come to stay had Hurricane Matthew come ashore on the East Coast of Florida with greater damage than it actually wreaked on central Florida communities. It recalled to me times when we've evacuated for a hurricane, packed some clothes, elderly friends, dogs, important papers into the car and wondered if we'd ever see our home again. I mentioned on the Hurricane Matthew thread over in Campfire Chat about being in a motel with lots of other evacuees and their dogs, all of us feeling a kind of companionship as we waited to see what destruction Mother Nature had wreaked upon our neighborhoods.

Although I haven't been in combat like some on these forums, I have evacuated a number of times, even once when my mother was dying in a nursing home, a storm was coming and we had to leave, take my elderly father and the dogs, and head on up the road. The vicissitudes which Civil War era refugees faced suddenly seemed more real to me during this latest storm season.

In this thread, I'm going to talk about some of the refugees from areas that don't get mentioned so much, those in the old Southwest, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, regions where we sometimes don't see as many diaries or letters or stories. Also will look at those who were often called "contrabands" when perhaps "refugees" was a more accurate term. As usual, though, anyone with refugee stories from their own family is welcomed to jump in and share stories and photos.

Mary Elizabeth Massey was a woman academic in the Civil War history field back when that was a scarcer breed, having obtained her degree from the University of North Carolina in 1947. Perhaps the experience of being a young person during the Depression and World War II gave her an insight into the disruption of lives during the Civil War that formed the foundation of her research and book Refugee Life in the Confederacy, published in 1964. Massey wrote:

[T]here was no `average' refugee. A person's financial situation, personal contacts, place of refugee, ingenuity, adjustability to changing conditions, and his good fortune or lack of it combined to make each refugee's circumstances distinctive.​

 

[18thVirginia]

Harpers Weekly featured a lot of drawings of refugees in the South such as this one from 1861.

Son of the South: Harper's Weekly September 14, 1861: " SOUTHERN FAMILY FIXING NORTH TO ESCAPE THE REBEL BANDITTI", pinterest.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Somehow missed this, a great thread! I just mentioned a woman's refugee story on another thread but it isn't mine to tell. Will see if I can find the link- an old thread.

 

[donna]

I am just seeing this thread too. Great thread.

 

[18thVirginia]

Confederate Refugees in Union Camp
pinterest

ARRIVAL OF UNION REFUGEES AT KINGSTON, GEORGIA.- .SKETCHED BY THEODORE R. DAVIS, Harper's Weekly

 

[AshleyMel]

Also just seeing this! Keep em coming! Wonderful thread!

 

[18thVirginia]

Judith Brockenbrough McGuire wrote of her experiences as a refugee from Alexandria, Virginia in Diary of Southern Refugee during the War. She mentions the dilemma of all refugees at the beginning of their story, what to take and what to leave behind.

We found Mrs. ________ packing up valuables. I have been doing the same: but after they are packed, where are they to be sent? Silver may be packed but what is to be done with books and pictures, etc.? We have determined, if we are obliged to go away from home, to leave everything in the care of the servants. They have promised to be faithful and believe that they will be, but my hope becomes stronger and stronger that we may remain here, or may soon return if we go away. https://www.amazon.com/Diary-Southern-Refugee-during-War/dp/0813165563/ref=redir_mobile_desktop?ie=UTF8&dpID=51JPaUcVuGL&dpPl=1&keywords=civil war refugee&pi=AC_SX110_SY165_QL70&qid=1428948692&ref=plSrch&ref_=mp_s_a_1_34&sr=1-34

​

 

[18thVirginia]

 

[James B White]

It's funny to see that picture now. Maybe 10 years or more ago, I was at a reenactment where several neighbor refugee families were working together. The family had gone to hide in a cave on the property, but after the first night, the women declared the stone was too cold. They demanded ticks and more blankets from the house, which was up a long, steep hill with a muddy road. All we had was one ox. I didn't know if it's how someone would have thought in the period, but there wasn't much choice. Another man and I headed up the hill with the ox, lashed on its back all we could find, and he walked beside balancing the load while I led the ox back down again.

In the drawing there, is that ox.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

What would cause a ' Sesesh ' family living in Alexandria to flee? I understand Alexandria became held by Union forces very early but was there vile behavior across the board when this happened? I'm asking because Southern families were tolerated in Washington, DC despite it being the capitol. It was an uneasy peace but they do not seem to have been harassed or ' molested '. ( Reveille in Washington, Margaret Leech ). Believe me, in no way am I saying elsewhere families were not in danger. I'm asking specifically about Alexandria.

I'm not burdening you with the answer to this, 18th, thought perhaps someone would know.

 

[18thVirginia]

According to Massey, as soon as the Union occupied Alexandria, Judith's husband John felt that they should flee from the occupied town. John McGuire had been on the state secession committee for Virginia and voted for secession. Massey points out that it was often the wealthier who fled both because they could afford it and they'd been involved in the politics of leaving the Union.

John was an Episcopalian minister who was at the Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria.

"With my mind's eye I look first into one room and then another, with all the associations of the past; the old family bible, the family pictures, the library containing the collection of forty years, and so many things which seemed a part of ourselves. What will become of them? Who are now using or abusing them?"

Judith McGuire
September 12, 1861
https://www.alexandriava.gov/histor...40306#VirginiaTheologicalSeminaryAlexandriaVA

Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria

 

[18thVirginia]

JPK Huson, I think we also have to remember that people on both sides thought that the Civil War wouldn't last that long. If they were fleeing, it would only be for 3 months, not be for the 4 years that it turned out to be. Or for some of them, never living again in their homes. Sometimes they fled because of an invading army, sometimes for economic reasons when their homes and crops had been destroyed, some to be with relatives in more secure areas.

"...The number of refugees increases fearfully as our army falls back; for though many persons, still surrounded by all the comforts of home ask why they do not stay and protect their property, my only answer is, 'How can they?' In many instances defenseless women and children are left without means of subsistence; their crops destroyed; their business suspended; their servants gone; their horses and other stock taken off; their homes liable at any hour of the day and night to be entered and desecrated by a lawless soldiery. How can they remain without even the present means of support, and nothing in prospect..."

Judith McGuire
July 15, 1863

 

[18thVirginia]

My great, great grandfather was the Mayor of Ft. Smith, Arkansas at some point during the Civil War--records are not very complete according to historians. When Union troops occupied Fort Smith, he and his three sons went to South Texas. Family history is that they converted all their assets possible to gold and put it in the wagon wheels. From South Texas, they moved on into Mexico and ran the blockades from Mexico into Texas. They were a merchant family in Arkansas, so I guess that makes sense. The women of the family remained behind in Fort Smith, which wasn't uncommon.

From Arkansas, many families with Confederate ties fled to Texas, along with refugees from Louisiana.

A historical marker for Confederate refugees in Hopkins County, Texas (wikimedia)

 

[18thVirginia]

Families with large numbers of slaves began to fear that as the the Union Army moved closer, their slaves would escape to Union lines and many plantation owners from Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri began the refugee process to move their human property to safety in Texas. John Bankhead Magruder, posted as a General in Arkansas in 1864, explained the saga of Arkansans to Texas:

I am told that over 150,000 negroes have gone from Missouri and Arkansas into Texas, and leaving out all considerations of fairness, I fear that if the few that remain here are impressed, those who would otherwise sow and plant would emigrate to Texas, and through the depopulation of the country we should not be able to support an army through another season, though otherwise successful.​

http://wcm1.web.rice.edu/how-many-refugeed-slaves-in-texas.html

John B. Magruder (wikipedia)

Later estimates put the number of slaves moved to Texas as 51,000, which is still an astounding number.* Planters were doing their best to remove enslaved people further away from approaching Union troops and freedom with their "GONE TO TEXAS" efforts.

*http://wcm1.web.rice.edu/how-many-refugeed-slaves-in-texas.html

 

[18thVirginia]

Some men wanted their wives to stay home while they were away. Joseph Semmes of Tennessee actually forbade his wife from taking the children and moving out of Memphis during 1862. She wrote him numerous times voicing her concern over the numbers of friends who had already left or were leaving during that spring, but he assured her that the Confederate army would be able to hold the city. Finally, when Union troops took Memphis on June 1, 1862, he urged her to flee. Refugee Life in the Confederacy, p. 27.

Hoisting the Stars and Stripes over the Memphis Post Office.

 

[RobertP]

My gg-grandmother and her children, including my then 11 year old g-grandmother, left their place in north Louisiana near Monroe after the fall of Vicksburg and headed for Texas. Her husband, my gg-grandfather, was in the CS army as QM of the 31st La. and at the time was arranging for regimental supplies throughout that part of the State. He was not captured in Vicksburg as were his two brothers also in the 31st. Following is a transcript of a letter from her to him about a year later from Rusk County, TX:

Millville May 29th 1864

My dear Husband,

I have the pleasure this evening of acknowledging the receipt of your kind favor of the 18th, which had been written 10 days and the only one I've received since Thursday week. I had become very uneasy about you and regret hearing that you were not well. I sincerely hope you have recovered before this and that you may continue to enjoy good health. I wrote you twice in the past week in which I gave you all the news except the return of Bro. Mc and I think he has written you since his return. He told me he had mailed a letter to you on yesterday, though for fear he has not I will mention that he brought all the wagons with him, though he had to go to Shreveport and get an order from the chief adjutant general before getting them. Birge was on the eve of sending them to San Antone. If he had been one week later, they would have been gone. Bro Mc has money which he says he wishes you to have, that he collected in the old issue. He says if I don't leave soon enough to take it, he will send it some other way. I will try to leave in time to get to Homer by the 25th, if that will be in time for you to dispose of it I can bring it with me.. I will write you definitely as to when I will leave so that you can meet me in Shreveport.

The mules are looking tolerably well except Rock. He was scarcely able to get here. I don't think he will ever be of any more service. Your mules that were here are very poor. Beck has been very low for several weeks -- cannot travel unless he improves Randle and Jeff only have 4 mule teams that they brought from Jefferson except Rock, which is only a frame of bones, barely surviving. If we take our best mules for the wagons and one for the buggy, I don't think there will be 4 left, though I haven't asked Bro. Mc and the boys are not here or I would inquire. I think I had better leave the poorest mules as the crop will soon be laid by and that will be giving them the benefit of a pasture as they are too poor, 2 or 3 of them, to travel. The others look very well.

I have occupied a portion of today in reading the Yankee paper you sent me, and I greatly fear our defeat since reading it, should they raise those 100 days men, which undoubtedly they will, and they will have overwhelming numbers against us, which is useless for us to deny. And they are told that if they will push forward that they will soon conquer us, and what is to be dreaded mostly, those men are coning on in time to destroy our crops, overrun our country, and in all probability leave us or those of us who may live through it in a starving condition. It is useless to say the North can't raise an army. Lincoln has the same power that President Davis has and can enforce it. I am sure I would like to think differently, although we must take a common sense view of the case. They have the power and it is with the people as to whether it is enforced or not. I greatly fear the result of the next 4 months. Nothing, save the hand of Providence, can screen us from the foe. Oh, that the good Lord would be pleased to smile upon us and would save us from the hand of the enemy. I am very anxious to get through and be able to leave for La. Since hearing of the enemy's reinforcing so largely, I am afraid to bring many of my things. I will pack them so that I could send for them provided I stay long enough to need them. Tuesday Bro. Mc will send this with his letter to Henderson to be sent by the courier and as Wiley is waiting on me, I shall have to bring my letter to a close.

I was quite sick night before last, though all right again. All well. The children are more anxious to leave than they ever were to come to Texas. They join me in sending love to you. It is useless for me to write you about the fine prospects for a crop as Bro. Mc has written. Say to Mrs. Bennett, Bro. Mc was in Henderson yesterday, there was not a yard of dress goods in Henderson, it being sent from Shreveport when the Yanks were coming up the river. Has since been taken back, selling there when Bro. Mc was there last week at $45 per yard calico. I regret not being able to make the purchase for her.

Your affectionate wife,

Mary Oliver

 

[18thVirginia]

What a nice family memento, RobertP, thanks for sharing.

 

[18thVirginia]

Massey explains in her documentation of refugees how many obsessed over what to pack, just as Judith McGuire did. Some of them loaded wagons full of furniture, even shipped pianos, which created great problems for them as they tried to travel over roads that had been degraded from use by the military and a lack of maintenance or across rivers.

Women Refugees Encamped Near Vicksburg during the Siege

http://www.agefotostock.com/age/en/Stock-Images/Rights-Managed/MEV-10218435

 

[18thVirginia]

REFUGEES FROM ARKANSAS

Many refugees from Southern Missouri and Northern Arkansas and Tennessee settled temporarily around Little Rock and when that fell to the Union, they moved south to Camden or further south to Shreveport, or on to East Texas. In Northwest Arkansas, locals were beset by guerrillas from both sides who were not necessarily partisans so much as bands of marauders and draft dodgers.

One citizen described the problems of those left in Arkansas:

I tell you, my son, this country has gone up, and the sooner things get righted up the better for all of us. The citizens who have taken the oath [Union loyalty oath] have not suffered near as much as those who have not. In my opinion Gen. McRae [Confederate General Dandridge McRae[ has done ten times more harm than good, and only makes the Fed s worse; both sides emulate each other in robbing, killing, and destroying. Whatever you do, my son, do not come home: your safest place is in the regular army. The reports you hear about Southern soldiers being about here are false. McRae's men are no better than gangs of robbers. The Feds are showing them no mercy.

https://thelibrary.org/lochist/periodicals/ozarkswatch/ow404s.htm​

 

[18thVirginia]

By 1864, the situation in Northern Arkansas had grown so desperate that refugees were fleeing North to Kansas or Missouri or South to Texas, where they could live in peace even if they had to cope with terrible poverty.

On August 8, 1864, a wagon train of 1500 refugee families set out from Fort Smith going north to Kansas or Missouri. By March of 1865, it was estimated that as many rations were given to refugees under Union protection in Northwest Arkansas as to the troops.

Union Refugees arriving at St. Louis -Pinterest