The Civil War's Most Influential Women, Who Were They?

I have to admit that I'm mildly surprised that no one has mentioned Mary Todd Lincoln, yet....

Sure...it's arguably all subjective....but she definitely had Lincoln's ear....whether Abe listened, or not, is debatable....

In contrast,....I always wondered how much of an influence (if at all) Varina Davis had with her husband....I can't recall any anecdote that I've heard about her, that would indicate as to one way or another....


Her biggest fan here, no arguments on Mary Todd. The thing is, she doesn't seem to have been able to influence many people. She still influences a lot of snark about her, all erroneous, hateful nonsense. A Southern woman, educated and raised to be a belle inside one of the most socially and politically prominent circles married the enemy-est enemy of them all. Then she dared to come to Washington, D.C., mistrusted and elbowed out of Northern circles- for being Southern. Could not win.

Yes, tough to get a read on Varina's influence. Her misfortune was to marry a widower whose story of losing his first wife has evoked today's ' romantic ', tragic take- that Davis never recovered and married Varina while still in love with a memory. Bleah. Davis was a vet, had dealt with death, was bright and capable enough to be asked to be the leader of a whole, ' new ' country. Gee whiz. Think he had a grip on the real world, his private life included. And we've seen Varina! Probably dropped men in their tracks.
 
Rose O'Neal Greenhow was another influential female spy. As a lady of Richmond society, she used her social status (and attractiveness) to obtain military information from politicians and Union officers (many of whom were in her social circles prior to the war.) She is often credited with helping the Rebels win the first Battle of Bull Run. Later in the war, Jefferson Davis sent her to Europe as an ambassador of the Confederacy in order to gain support and legitimacy.


I can see where she was influential- Rose had the social and political weight to throw around. There's this weird take on her, maybe because she had such a tragic end, that she was some soulful, poetic type? From context, have a feeling that's way off? Firecracker, terrifyingly blunt and aggressive and a crashing snob toboot. BOY was she angry not only being confined to her home but having it used as a female prison ( before they moved her to the old Capitol Prison ) meant she had to rub elbows with other women, considered socially beneath her.

Read quite a few era accounts- her guards were intimidated. SO funny. If Rosie was unhappy, everyone was unhappy.
 
Thank you for sharing! Yes, she certainly was a very influential woman.
May a male suggest a book for the female descendants of the Confederacy,"CIVIL WAR.Women and the crisis of Southern Nationalism '' George C. Rable.One may have to order via Amazon if you can not find it in the library.It is a social history of women prior to the war ,during the war ,and afterwards.The Northern ladies may read this and state that their women did the same things but with the Southern ladies they endured and triumphed over invasion of their homeland ,shortages,and moral hardships that the Northern lady missed.It is about the breakdown of a society based on class and social rank.While reading this book ,remember the scene of Scarlett ,of Gone with the Wind, prior to the war,during the war and after .Remember her holding her hand up with the soil and stating that she was never going to starve again.If one has daughters then I suggest that they save the book so that when difficult times or events that they know of what stoke of women they descend from.The hostility of the women towards SHERMAN is very well documented ,As to the most influential that would be the women of the Confederacy ,they maintained the home during the war and provided the strength afterwards.Then may be Northern ladies if they read this will gain insight into what makes a Steel Magnolia.
 
May a male suggest a book for the female descendants of the Confederacy,"CIVIL WAR.Women and the crisis of Southern Nationalism '' George C. Rable.One may have to order via Amazon if you can not find it in the library.It is a social history of women prior to the war ,during the war ,and afterwards.The Northern ladies may read this and state that their women did the same things but with the Southern ladies they endured and triumphed over invasion of their homeland ,shortages,and moral hardships that the Northern lady missed.It is about the breakdown of a society based on class and social rank.While reading this book ,remember the scene of Scarlett ,of Gone with the Wind, prior to the war,during the war and after .Remember her holding her hand up with the soil and stating that she was never going to starve again.If one has daughters then I suggest that they save the book so that when difficult times or events that they know of what stoke of women they descend from.The hostility of the women towards SHERMAN is very well documented ,As to the most influential that would be the women of the Confederacy ,they maintained the home during the war and provided the strength afterwards.Then may be Northern ladies if they read this will gain insight into what makes a Steel Magnolia.


No arguments on whose war was more awful. @Gladys Hodge Sherrer's book is terrific for some remarkable illustrations taken from her family's war, for some good reading. The thing is, I'm not sure anyone is arguing or that an argument exists- no one will read of what Southern women endured and say " Yes, but Northern women did this ". It's a fictional competition from the get-go. We girls toughed out a lot- none more so than black women, if there must be comparisons. Southern women may have felt animosity towards their Northern sisters and few escaped war's impact- it's where the war was, in the south. Pitching women against each is a little silly IMO. One ferocious New England matron was a Steel Magnolia, displaced, and vice versa. Women rose to challenges and Southern women were challenged.

I'm not sure you wish to use Scarlett as an example of all things Southern womanhood anyway. You don't see her as a warm, giving, selfless and compassionate girl but that's what they had to be to pull off the things they did. Dramatic speeches didn't heal wounded or rebuild anything or clean up the mess called war.

No comment on Sherman. Contrary to some erroneous idea out there that ' Yankee ' equals ' Sherman fan who wishes they rode with him setting homes ablaze ', quite a few of us do not fit that description. I'm not crazy about adding to the whole narrative here but I'm forced to. His famous ' War Is H*ll ' quote seems excusatory. As a military ' tactic ' I've read a lot about how it was effective, this march of his. That's fine and may be accurate. It was also ruthless, frequently barbaric and IMO needlessly so.
 
No arguments on whose war was more awful. @Gladys Hodge Sherrer's book is terrific for some remarkable illustrations taken from her family's war, for some good reading. The thing is, I'm not sure anyone is arguing or that an argument exists- no one will read of what Southern women endured and say " Yes, but Northern women did this ". It's a fictional competition from the get-go. We girls toughed out a lot- none more so than black women, if there must be comparisons. Southern women may have felt animosity towards their Northern sisters and few escaped war's impact- it's where the war was, in the south. Pitching women against each is a little silly IMO. One ferocious New England matron was a Steel Magnolia, displaced, and vice versa. Women rose to challenges and Southern women were challenged.

I'm not sure you wish to use Scarlett as an example of all things Southern womanhood anyway. You don't see her as a warm, giving, selfless and compassionate girl but that's what they had to be to pull off the things they did. Dramatic speeches didn't heal wounded or rebuild anything or clean up the mess called war.

No comment on Sherman. Contrary to some erroneous idea out there that ' Yankee ' equals ' Sherman fan who wishes they rode with him setting homes ablaze ', quite a few of us do not fit that description. I'm not crazy about adding to the whole narrative here but I'm forced to. His famous ' War Is H*ll ' quote seems excusatory. As a military ' tactic ' I've read a lot about how it was effective, this march of his. That's fine and may be accurate. It was also ruthless, frequently barbaric and IMO needlessly so.
The best method to solve this is to read of the women and children who lived thought it.I do not know of any bookstores that have any but if one goes to Amazon type in Southern women in CW the you can find serverel of these books either historical or in historical fiction There is on I shall order "BLOCKADED ,A Family in Southern Alabama during the Civil War 1888-Pathania A. Hague. Is the story from a women who lived in during the Northern invasion of South,Al. not a Lady of the Plantation but a mid class women.i not read of any books which tells of the horror that sisters of North endured what these women did.
 
There have been several posts about the Women of the South and I wholeheartedly agree. There is a Confederate $100.00 bill that some collectors say has a likeness of Varina Davis, some say its Lucy Pickens. While others say its dedicated to the Women of the South. From what I've read its the likeness of Lucy Pickens as the model for the Women of the South. Either way the "Ladies" get my vote.
 
The best method to solve this is to read of the women and children who lived thought it.I do not know of any bookstores that have any but if one goes to Amazon type in Southern women in CW the you can find serverel of these books either historical or in historical fiction There is on I shall order "BLOCKADED ,A Family in Southern Alabama during the Civil War 1888-Pathania A. Hague. Is the story from a women who lived in during the Northern invasion of South,Al. not a Lady of the Plantation but a mid class women.i not read of any books which tells of the horror that sisters of North endured what these women did.


Northern women went to war. Teachers, relief workers, nurses, wives and mothers following armies, Catholic Sisters and those who hid in the ranks. I'm still looking for numbers on how many died, since you insist there's a competition. I'm not playing ' who's on first ' however and I'm not convinced your concern is sincere anyway. Again, pitting women against each other is always suspect. Also again, no one is questioning whether or not women's experiences in the South during the war were awful. Black and white women btw.

If you haven't read any books on the horrors endured by women in the north I can't do a thing about it. If what you're saying is there are no books then you're spinning fiction.

Post war women joined together, North and South, trying to ensure yet another war wouldn't decimate families in the future. We've managed to water the movement down to something cuddly once a year called Mother's Day. Those involved were determined we girls wouldn't be divided and it's a terrific idea. I'm not sure anyone else gets to tell us we should be.
 
While reading this book ,remember the scene of Scarlett ,of Gone with the Wind, prior to the war,during the war and after .Remember her holding her hand up with the soil and stating that she was never going to starve again.If one has daughters then I suggest that they save the book so that when difficult times or events that they know of what stoke of women they descend from.The hostility of the women towards SHERMAN is very well documented ,As to the most influential that would be the women of the Confederacy ,they maintained the home during the war and provided the strength afterwards.Then may be Northern ladies if they read this will gain insight into what makes a Steel Magnolia.

Gone with the Wind was my favorite book in the whole wide world when I was thirteen years old.

That being said, Scarlett O'Hara was a fictional character. Margaret Mitchell grew up in a (white) privileged, well-connected family. She wrote the book during the 1920's and 1930's based on a bunch of stories that she heard from older family members. Obviously, her family felt a certain way based on the family's particular experiences during the war.


Why would one take a fictional character who was created decades after a historical event, and use this fictional character as the "evidence" that women of a certain time period acted a certain way?

Also, since I read the actual book "Gone with the Wind" (I'm talking about the book, not the movie), I did in fact read the chapter in which the white gentlemen in Scarlett O'Hara's life participate on a Ku Klux Klan raid on an African American shantytown. (This is Part IV of the book.) Not only is Scarlett O'Hara a fictional character, but the (fictional) novel "Gone with the Wind" is a pretty racist book, in my opinion.
 
There have been several posts about the Women of the South and I wholeheartedly agree. There is a Confederate $100.00 bill that some collectors say has a likeness of Varina Davis, some say its Lucy Pickens. While others say its dedicated to the Women of the South. From what I've read its the likeness of Lucy Pickens as the model for the Women of the South. Either way the "Ladies" get my vote.
Yes, it is Lucy Pickens. I have one of those bills passed down to me from my grandmother. It was actually one of the catalyst that started my interest in my family's history and search for my ancestors. Lucy Pickens, because of that bill, was the first woman I ever researched and studied! She was a pretty good person to start with!:smile:
 
I think it probably must be Harriet Beecher Stowe because Lincoln once said to her "You are the little woman who wrote that book that started the war" (or something to that effect). He should know best, I guess.

But otherwise I'd nominate Varina Davis. She sure had the most direct influence, as indeed there were times when she kept the Southern war effort going. She had learned to imitate her ailing husband's (in the first 200 days of 1863 Jefferson Davis was ill and bedridden for 50 days, sometimes so badly that he could not even speak!) handwriting and when he was incapacitated she and Secretary of War Judah Benjamin "ran the machine", as Dr. John Burgess, a friend of Varina's said later.
From one of my favorite books, "Intimate strategies of the Civil War" by Carol Bleser:
View attachment 200766
https://books.google.de/books?id=I1...cAhWMDewKHeYYDSIQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q&f=false
Sounds like Edit Wilson,some consider her the first female President.May I inquire if you have read ."VARINA'' by Charles Frazier,This is a very interesting historical novel.Even though it is a novel Frazier brings in a very interesting character who is not written of in other bios that I know,This young man did exist and was member of the Davis family,Her time with the Davis family while Jefferson was in Mexico is informative as to this family ,Thomas did not run his plantation as others but more of as a progressive ,if I dare use this term. Frazier story of her and her time in Richmond and then became a refuge from Richmond.If you can inform me a good bio on her ,I have read one but it was simple book.
 
Sounds like Edit Wilson,some consider her the first female President.May I inquire if you have read ."VARINA'' by Charles Frazier,This is a very interesting historical novel.Even though it is a novel Frazier brings in a very interesting character who is not written of in other bios that I know,This young man did exist and was member of the Davis family,Her time with the Davis family while Jefferson was in Mexico is informative as to this family ,Thomas did not run his plantation as others but more of as a progressive ,if I dare use this term. Frazier story of her and her time in Richmond and then became a refuge from Richmond.If you can inform me a good bio on her ,I have read one but it was simple book.
Indeed I have already bought the book, but it still sits on my much too high "to read" pile... but I'm looking forward to reading it ( as I do with all the others too... so much to read, so little time ....)
 
What was the take on Varina at the time, please? I'd have thought fairly positive. Like a lot of women in the public eye it's hard to get a read on her from a distance of 150 plus years.

Was she influential at the time? That can be a whole, different question. Someone can have done wonderful work, been a terrific person and lived a fairly eventful life without having exerted any particular influence over their time period. I'm not saying Varina did or not did not- I don't know enough about her.

Personally, I tend to have an awful lot of sympathy for women married to married famous men. They tend to be either ignored or shellacked. Mary Todd Lincoln and Mary Custis Lee are 2 examples there.
 
Is the Quaker influence part of that or was it an outgrowth of an abolitionist's conviction we were indeed equal across the board? Sorry, I don't mean to sidetrack too much, it's not something that we hear enough of.

The Quaker influence is evident. The abolitionist movement among white Americans 1840-1860 was based on a fundamentist Christian religious sentiment of salvery as sin. The Quakers had identified slavery as sin earlier, about the 1780s, and pushed that belief forward.
 
What was the take on Varina at the time, please? I'd have thought fairly positive. Like a lot of women in the public eye it's hard to get a read on her from a distance of 150 plus years.

Was she influential at the time? That can be a whole, different question. Someone can have done wonderful work, been a terrific person and lived a fairly eventful life without having exerted any particular influence over their time period. I'm not saying Varina did or not did not- I don't know enough about her.

Personally, I tend to have an awful lot of sympathy for women married to married famous men. They tend to be either ignored or shellacked. Mary Todd Lincoln and Mary Custis Lee are 2 examples there.
Annie, of course you are right. In Varina's case, the influence had to be concealed. It would not have fitted the role of the wife of the President to let show that she was doing more good than her husband, who was judged quite controversial, even in the South.

@Bruce Vail , for a short introduction I can recommend to read chapter one in Carol Bleser's fascinating book " Intimate strategies of the Civil War - Military commanders and their wifes" about the relationship between Jefferson and Varina Davis. I bet you will see her with renewed respect then.
Snip-it_1587821676697.jpg


This link hopefully leads to Chapter one, starting on page 3:

 
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Annie, of course you are right. In Varina's case, the influence had to be concealed. It would not have fitted the role of the wife of the President to let show that she was doing more good than her husband, who was judged quite controversial, even in the South.

@Bruce Vail , for a short introduction I can recommend to read chapter one in Carol Bleser's fascinating book " Intimate strategies of the Civil War - Military commanders and their wifes" about the relationship between Jefferson and Varina Davis. I bet you will see her with renewed respect then.
View attachment 356432

This link hopefully leads to Chapter one, starting on page 3:

I'm in the pro-Varina camp, decidedly, based primarily on the perspicacious and astute view of the giant, Mary (Mrs. James) Chesnut. When we look at the political cesspool that was Richmond in 1864 (the Davis/Hood/western camp vs. the Johnston/Wigfall/FFV camp) we see the corrosive effect of a cabal determined to "rein in" Davis by whatever means necessary. We know Gen. J.B. Hood, soon to be a full general equal to R.E. Lee, spent at least one evening in a dinner a deux (in a public place) with Varina in Richmond that year, an unusual event in any administration, or any war. Whatever he told her, or she, him, however, never reach others' ears. Chesnut knew everyone, everything, and every event that mattered in Richmond during that pivotal year (she even sat up with the body of the Davises' young son the night of his fatal accident at the Confederate White House) and she trusted Varina completely. Their private letters say as much. What was good enough for Mary Chesnut is good enough for me. (And I only refrain from nominated MBC herself because her landmark diary wasn't published until 20 years post-war.)
 
Chesnut knew everyone, everything, and every event that mattered in Richmond during that pivotal year (she even sat up with the body of the Davises' young son the night of his fatal accident at the Confederate White House) and she trusted Varina completely. Their private letters say as much. What was good enough for Mary Chesnut is good enough for me. (And I only refrain from nominated MBC herself because her landmark diary wasn't published until 20 years post-war.)

So she was? Good to know and also good to have more light shed on her war years. What drives me crazy is the various shellack applied, layer on layer over 150 years over the images of most of these women. You just can't see them through all the nonsense and it's a chore getting a clear idea of their genuine roles much less who they were.

AND if Mary Chestnut was influential enough to make the list, it can't matter when her diary was published, right? I've always gotten a giant kick out of her anyway. Thank goodness for that diary or we'd never have been aware of her.
 
So she was? Good to know and also good to have more light shed on her war years. What drives me crazy is the various shellack applied, layer on layer over 150 years over the images of most of these women. You just can't see them through all the nonsense and it's a chore getting a clear idea of their genuine roles much less who they were.

AND if Mary Chestnut was influential enough to make the list, it can't matter when her diary was published, right? I've always gotten a giant kick out of her anyway. Thank goodness for that diary or we'd never have been aware of her.
Yes, that's my view. The brief dust-up years ago about "Was the Chesnut diary a hoax?" was ridiculous. As C. Vann Woodward said, Chesnut had an enormous amount of her original diary intact to work from when she began assembling it for publication late in her life. Sadly, she destroyed or lost much of the material from the pivotal year in Richmond in 1864 and had to reconstruct it when she began her final work. If you wanted to argue that she made up, out of whole cloth entire conversations, public events, and other episodes, you'd have to grapple with several hard facts. First was that major players from those very public events were still alive and well, including Jefferson and Varina Davis; the two sisters of Buck Preston (who had died in 1880); the nine surviving children of the late John Bell and Anna Hood; Gen. Joseph E. Johnston; William T. Sherman (who was the guardian of Hood's military papers)...I mean, come on!!! Who is going to fabricate hundreds of hours of public events, dozens and dozens of conversations among many, many people, when the majority of the players are still alive and well, for crying out loud? Chesnut chastised Buck Preston for telling her sisters and close friends EVERY THING J.B. Hood said to her---they were all alive and well!! Did Chesnut perhaps "foreshadow" a few events from the benefit of hindsight? Quite probably. (I have my suspicions about one particular remark but no evidence for it.) Second was that CHESNUT LET THE ACTORS READ THE DIARY IN REAL TIME. She left her diary open on a table in her parlor and Buck Preston, for one, argued with MC about her characterization of Buck's acts and motivations, in real time. Her sisters et al. would have been aware of all of this, as would have Louly Wigfall, who was infatuated with Hood herself as a teenager and lived well into the early 1900s and was in contact with the Hood children. All of these folks could have expressed outrage, denial, or anger re: the Chesnut diary. None did.
 
So she was? Good to know and also good to have more light shed on her war years. What drives me crazy is the various shellack applied, layer on layer over 150 years over the images of most of these women. You just can't see them through all the nonsense and it's a chore getting a clear idea of their genuine roles much less who they were.

AND if Mary Chestnut was influential enough to make the list, it can't matter when her diary was published, right? I've always gotten a giant kick out of her anyway. Thank goodness for that diary or we'd never have been aware of her.
[/QUOTE/[

Oh, and for those who think someone couldn't recall events word-for-word 20 years after the fact, I'm here to tell you I can remember events, word for word, 50 years later, and I have the ex-boyfriends to prove it. :smile: If you'd met people as famous as Jackie Kennedy Onassis (as I did); Paul Newman (as I did); Norman Mailer (as I did); philanthropist Paul Mellon (as I did); Oliver North (as I did); National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, multi-time Olympian Bill Steinkraus, author Gore Vidal, primatologists Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey, Senators John Warner and Paul Tsongas, Nobel Prize winners Fogel and Engerman, and many other famous folks, as I did 20-45 years ago, you'd remember every word. Mary Chesnut did, too.
 
I'm in the pro-Varina camp, decidedly, based primarily on the perspicacious and astute view of the giant, Mary (Mrs. James) Chesnut. When we look at the political cesspool that was Richmond in 1864 (the Davis/Hood/western camp vs. the Johnston/Wigfall/FFV camp) we see the corrosive effect of a cabal determined to "rein in" Davis by whatever means necessary. We know Gen. J.B. Hood, soon to be a full general equal to R.E. Lee, spent at least one evening in a dinner a deux (in a public place) with Varina in Richmond that year, an unusual event in any administration, or any war. Whatever he told her, or she, him, however, never reach others' ears. Chesnut knew everyone, everything, and every event that mattered in Richmond during that pivotal year (she even sat up with the body of the Davises' young son the night of his fatal accident at the Confederate White House) and she trusted Varina completely. Their private letters say as much. What was good enough for Mary Chesnut is good enough for me. (And I only refrain from nominated MBC herself because her landmark diary wasn't published until 20 years post-war.)
There is one question that no one either does not want to deal with or just acts as if it is no more than footnote/.Did the Davis have a black female slave that served as a spy and give her information to a noted loyal Confederate women ,who I can not remember her name.Is there a book on this woman or her controller?What information could she have rendered ?Women were the best spies not just for their sex but for the gullibility of the men.
 
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