JPK Huson 1863
Brev. Brig. Gen'l
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2012
- Location
- Central Pennsylvania
Just a reminder, please, from one of the hosts.
With apologies to @Bee , who forgivably holds copyright on the image. Borrowing this ( from Hathi ) as one of the hosts of Ladies Tea and ask indulgence. We're entrusted with Ladies Tea's positive direction, at least.
As it states in our introduction, Ladies Tea is for pretty much the entire world, Ladies, men, bugs, if they can read- History buffs with an interest in what the war held, comprehensively, for women.
Women had a terrible war. Please no one make the mistake anyone is sleeping at the wheel or some great revelation has been missed. Elizabeth Masser Thorn of Gettysburg was a poor immigrant woman. Her boss was wealthy, powerful and dismissive of er, underlings. Burying over 100 men in blazing heat that July was an order, ' or else '. She'd already spent the battle being shoved around by generals from two armies. Lydia Hamilton and Becky Palmer are not well known Gettysburg names. They should be. Black women, Lydia begged food and a wagon and spent days feeding wounded. Becky escaped the Confederate army and being sold into an enslaved war.
Why were there so many prostitutes? Food. Very young girls were forced into prostitution. To eat. Homes gone, men gone. Poor women, middle class women- elite women. These histories are simply found. We bring them here, to share because these stories of women in the war simply must be told.
Without disclaimers, this awful war swept our country like a bloody, social, psychological, sociological and physical tsunami. 150 years later, we're still holding on to trees while flotsam washes past us on the way out to sea. We're still claiming precedence on the part of victims, too. And while that's a little crazy it's opinion. That's fine.
I'm seeing contention about and contempt for Southern elite women. This is taking the form of ' Who's on First ', who suffered more, who wrote a book addressing one form of suffering and why others were ignored, why Southern elite women did not deserve to claim suffering and how this is becoming a verboten topic.
While I understand it is easy to be drawn into vile injustices committed 150 years ago, and we should speak of them, becoming indignant to the point of becoming exclusionary is really, bullying dead people? I'm a little loathe to be put in the position of ' defending ' anyone at all. We are so, so easily divided. A woman, who lost everything, sons and husband away at war or dead, has a story. If she lived in Vermont, she has a story. If she lived in Mississippi, she has a story. These stories deserve to be told one by one. The war was loss and grief. When we begin comparing suffering, we allow ourselves to be divided. A Southern, elite woman dragged my uncle, Seward's secretary, home from Liggon's prison, with Typhoid. When he died in her home, she buried him in her family plot, at Shocktoe. She lost everything in the war. Her name was Elizabeth Van Lew.
Point being, it would be very good to try to keep Ladies Tea a positive forum, working to be inclusive of women's experiences during the war. Should there be an outside source not agreed with, a thread on the topic is the place to discuss this. Our membership, not to mention the many browsers who find their way here, have ancestors whose stories include these women.
Brass once encouraged how positive this posting has been over the years- compliment? Oi. It now feels more of a responsibility than ever.