Say What Saturday: “Bits of Gossip” from Rebecca Blaine Harding Davis

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“I lived, during three years of the war, on the border of West Virginia”, and with these words Rebecca Harding Davis begins chapter five in her book “Bits of Gossip” {1}. Her life began in the David Bradford House in Washington Pennsylvania on June 24, 1831 however by 1836 the family settled in Wheeling (now) West Virginia. It was a home surrounded by factories and mills. She published her first book in 1861 she titled “Life in the Iron Mills”. It was widely successful as she described a “bleak picture” of industrialization in the United States. In 1904 she wrote her last book titled ”Bits of Gossip”. Penned nearly fifty years after the war and fifty years to reflect on all she saw and experienced it gives us glimpses of her thoughts during those tumultuous times.

She documents the sectional pride of men who saw both sides in her home town. Opinions were plentiful and varied. She believed the elders sided with the Union while the younger residents with the Confederacy. After the election of Abraham Lincoln the “dye was cast” and in her words:

“The great mass of the people as yet took little interest in any of the questions involved except the vital one - whether the Union should be preserved. The Union, to the average American of that day, was as essential a foundation of life as was his Bible or his God.” - - -

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Dividing the National Map
(From L to R) Abraham Lincoln; Stephen Douglas; John Breckinridge; John Bell
(Library of Congress Illustration)

“The stories he told to the waiting crowds at every station were funny, but nobody laughed at them. The nation grew sick at heart. The truth probably is, that while the soul of the man faced the great work before him, he hid his real thoughts from prying eyes behind his ordinary habits of speech.”

She writes of the prayers given by both sides - - -

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Major Robert Anderson at Fort Sumter - December 27, 1860 - Harper's Weekly, January 26, 1861
(Library of Congress Illustrations)

From the early years in Wheeling when the Federals marched in and she saw both - - -​

“General William Rosecrans and General John Fremont, and notes the later was the ideal soldier “simple, high-bred, courteous; always at a white heat of purpose. His wife was constantly beside him, urging the cause with all the wonderful magnetism which then made her the most famous of American women”.

The war came to Wheeling residents when they saw death. A young officer had been in the sights of a sharpshooter while he was on a near-by mountain and soon a rough wooden casket arrived in the town for transport to his home for a final goodbye. Some of the men in her town had gone to look at him and described him as a very handsome boy with a little purple spot on his white breast. She continues that those who observed the scene - - - ​

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Soldiers with flag-draped coffin
Artist: John Wolcott Adams (1874-1925)
(Library of Congress Illustration)

Some of her recollections contains either absurd or humorous stories especially when she discusses the frantic “call to arms” on a nation ill-prepared to produce mass quantities of fighting men.

“Regiments of men who never had fired a gun were commanded by men who never had handled a sword. Farmers, clerks, dentists, and shopkeepers today - presto! tomorrow, soldiers! - - -

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An Unidentified Officer Leading a Charge
Artist: Alfred Waud (1828-1891)
(Library of Congress Illustration)

She told the story as relayed to her of a gallant old officer that had a rather embarrassing incident - - -

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Cavalry charge near Culpeper Court House
Artist: Edwin Forbes (1839-1895)
(Library of Congress Illustration)

She vividly recalls the “mood of the people” during this dark period of history.​

“There was one curious fact which I do not remember ever to have seen noticed in histories of the war, and that was its effect upon the nation as individuals. Men and women thought and did noble and mean things that would have been impossible to them before or after. A man cannot drink old Bourbon long and remain in his normal condition. We did not drink Bourbon, but blood. - - -

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"Southern women hounding their men to rebellion”
Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper May 23, 1863
(Library of Congress Illustration)

As the war continued she documented​

“There were, for instance, regiments on both sides which had been wholly recruited from the jails and penitentiaries. This class of the soldiery raged like wild, beasts through the mountains of the border States. They burned, they murdered men, women, and children, they cut out the tongues of old men who would not answer their questions.

Again, it must be remembered that a large number of men in both armies did not, as we imagine now, volunteer in a glow of patriotic zeal for an idea - to save either the Union or the Confederacy - to free the negro or to defend state's rights. They were not all fervid, chivalric Robert Shaws or Robert Lees. They went into the army simply to earn a living. This was especially true in the border States during the later years of the war. Every industry, except those necessary for the maintenance of the army, had then come to a full stop. The war was the sole business of the nation. With many laboring men the only choice was to enlist or starve.”

Sadly she also remembers at some point the numbness one feels over the loss of life. - - -​

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June 3, 1862 Fair Oaks after the battle, Burying the dead - Burning the horses
Artist: Alfred Waud (1828-1891)
(Library of Congress Illustration)

At the end of the war and writing some fifty years later as she reflects on where the nation was:​

“When it was over, the farmer, the salesman, the shoemaker, took up the dull burden of his workaday life again, and carries it still. But he never forgets that for five years he, too, was Achilles - of the race of heroes. - -

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Troops marching in Victory
(Library of Congress Illustration)


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Sources
1. https://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/davisr/davis.html
2. https://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.php?b=Davis_Rebecca_Blaine_Harding
Photo Rebecca Harding Davis - Public Domain
Library of Congress Illustrations - No known copyright restriction on publication
 
What a remarkably talented woman she was! To express such thoughts with the anquish she felt is amazing. Thank you for sharing.
Regards
David
 
Wow. Wouldnt you like to meet her over a cup of Irish Tea?? The stories she could tell. It reminds me of the stories that my FIL and Uncle told about thier service in WW2. Never going to read about those in the history books..
 
Thank you so much for sharing. It's posts like this that keep me coming back to CWT!
Thank you for taking the time to read and enjoy this interesting women. There are so many fascinating stories to tell of the remarkable women living in the 1860's as it sounds like you are discovering!!
 
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