The Civil War: Women and the Homefront

Letter before and during the Civil War from Harriet Person Perry to her husband, as well as her 1869 diary, give and excellent picture of home life on the Texas frontier. Also includes a daybook kept by Thomas Person's wife during the war. (Microfilm: SW&TF-H/3)

Correspondence during Civil War reflects the difficulties of a young wife left to manage farm and family. (Microfilm: SW&TF-H/3)

Reminiscences concerning friction between Union and Confederate sympathizers in Missouri, and Rainwater's journey to meet her wounded husband, who was a Confederate officer.

Letters, 1855-1871, from Sabra S. Tracy, a Vermont schoolteacher who married Ramsey, a Virginia minister, document their courtship, marriage, and life of a Northerner in the South during the Civil War. (Microfilm: SW&TF-H/3)

Letters of a banker's wife to her sons stationed in the Vermont Infantry concern personal matters and document Mrs. Ripley's efforts to raise supplies for the U.S. Sanitary Commission and her activities in Centre Rutland, Vt. to support the war efforts. Contrast with letters home from Ripley's daughter while she was living in London, 1864-1873.

Includes letters from Confederate women offering supplies.

Russel moved his family from Massachusetts to Tennessee in 1864 to run a liberated plantation with ex-slaves. Letters from his daughter Lucy to her Aunt Ellen describe her experiences teaching blacks there.

Correspondence, 1860-1865, relates to life and events during the Civil War and includes some legal and financial papers, passes, clippings, and miscellaneous items. (Microfilm: SW&TF-H/3)

Civil War materials relating to gifts of the Spartanburg ladies to the soldiers.

Presumably kept by a woman, scrapbook is comprised of newspaper clippings documenting the first years of war and includes large selection of poems and various articles about women's role in the Confederacy, such as General Butler's controversial proclamation on (against) women in New Orleans and Confederate spy Rose O'Neal Greenhow.

Literary correspondence with Robert Bonner, editor of the New York Ledger, concerning the publication of E.D.E.N. Southworth's stories; discusses Southworth's hatred of Confederates. Catalog listing of Southworth's books held at Duke.

Personal correspondence of Stebbins who taught in Mississippi before and after the Civil War, and who also operated her own school in Springfield. Contains information on subjects taught, remuneration of teachers, merits of Northern and Southern teachers in Southern schools.

Letter from a Northern teacher in a Negro school describing the African Church in which she is teaching and the close observation of their activities by Southerners. (Microfilm: SW&TF-H/3)

Lengthy and reflective diaries of Georgia plantation mistress detail relations between white men and Negro women, Civil War military activity, Union occupation of the South, the state of the Southern society after the war, labor and servant problems, financial losses and poverty. (Note: The diaries have been published in edited form as The Secret Eye.) (Microfilm: SW&TF-H/1)

Correspondence contains testimonials of Thompson's services to the Federal government documenting her duty in hospitals where she nursed wounded soldiers, her spying activities during the Civil War, and her lectures after the war. (Microfilm: SW&TF-H/2)

Various Civil War experiences of the Tillinghast women. Journal, 1861, of Emily Tillinghast describes home life during the early months of the Confederacy. Long letter (56 pp.) of Sarah Ann Tillinghast describes making clothes for the local infantry and activities of the Union soldiers. An account by Robina Tillinghast gives her reaction to Sherman's march through Fayetteville.

Ward served with the U.S. Christian Commission in hospitals in Louisville, Ky., and Nashville, Tenn., from 1864 to 1865, where she worked in the kitchens and as a general aide to the soldiers who spent brief periods there.

Letters of Josephine West and her friends concern social life just before the Civil War and the difficulties of managing slaves during the Civil War. (Microfilm: SW&TF-H/2)

Diary of an opinionated 16 year old rebel farm girl near Gallatin, Tenn., describes the Yankee occupation of surrounding areas, projects to educate former slaves, her own school life and social visits. Read this diary online.

Letters concerning the evacuation of women from Cass Station, Ga., to Atlanta, to Athens, and finally Banks Co. (Microfilm: SW&TF-H/1)

Correspondence between Woodruff and several other single self-supporting middle class women documenting the variety of teaching positions held by the women at schools and academies and with private families as well as the struggles of teaching during the Civil War. Also included are Civil War courtship letters which begin in 1865 and detail Sherman's march through S.C. (Microfilm: SW&TF-H/1)

Letters written by the Yonce sisters show the reactions of Southern women to the war, particularly Sophia, who writes from Gladsboro, N.C., about how her whole life is affected by this 'wicked war' and how hard it is to keep up the farm without her husband. (Microfilm: SW&TF-H/3)