“If another is loved, no sense of honor will prevent our immediately letting the other know of it This engagement binding,” wrote a Georgia belle to her betrothed, a Confederate lieutenant. Both women and men kept engagements secret, sometimes specifying that each was still free to see others. Silly love affairs,” as one woman called them - flourished. Casual relationships, and even casual engagements - “slight, The relaxed wartime atmosphere led to increased physical intimacy, although in letters and diaries Southern women admitted only to flirting. “I confess myself a rebel, body and soul,” declared a Louisiana girl,Īdding, “Confess? I glory in it!” Union soldiers occupying Southern towns complained of “she-rebels” who spat at them and emptied the contents of chamber pots on their heads. Even their style ofīanter changed, turning aggressive and overtly political, a rebellion against their old identities as genteel Southern ladies. The women took unchaperoned trips to ConfederateĬampgrounds, going on horseback rides and picnics, allowing uniformed men to serenade them and plant lingering kisses on their hands - all activities once restricted to engaged couples. New acquaintances required a formal letter of introduction, but the war allowed for association with complete strangers, men whose names they didn’t even know. Troops marching through the capital blew kisses to the Richmond belles, who returned the attention with unprecedented abandon, waving handkerchiefs and tossing pocket Bibles and pincushions. To wish that I had gone to church, but I love the soldiers so much, that I forget almost everything else when I get to thinking about them.” It is wicked in me to wish that I had gone out so that I might see them, and not Tantalizing to me to hear the drum and the cheering and to be able to see nothing but their bayonets and the tops of their heads. this afternoon,” wrote a 16-year-old Richmond diarist. “Between eight and ten thousand men went down Main St. Where the new recruits set up tents and conducted military drills. The Central Fair Grounds just west of the city were transformed into “Camp Lee,” Thousands of men flocked to theĬonfederate capital of Richmond, prepared to work in one of the government departments or to train for duty in the Army. The war ultimately challenged not only long-held traditions of courtship and marriage, but the expectation that one might wedĪt least in cities where the Confederate Army established a base of operations, young women were overwhelmed by the number of prospective suitors. The girls themselves relinquished the anticipation, instilled since birth, that they would one day assume their positions as wives, mothersĪnd slave mistresses, that their lives would be steeped in every privilege and comfort. The war’s disruptions forced elite Southern parents to loosen rules regarding chaperoning and coquetry, which one prominent lecturer called “an artful mixture of hypocrisy, fraud, treacheryĪnd falsehood” that risked tarnishing a girl’s reputation. Gone were the traditions of antebellum courtships, where family connections and wealth were paramount and a closed circle of friends and neighbors scrutinized potential mates, a process that could In the sudden absence of husbands, fathers, brothers and beaus, white Southern women discovered a newfound freedom - one that simultaneously granted them more power in relationships and increased their likelihood The package contained a skirt and crinoline, and the note these terse words: “Wear these, or volunteer.” He volunteered.Ī Winslow Homer drawing from 1865 showing a captain, who lost an arm, with his newly independent wife. Linked arms and sang, “I am Bound to be a Soldier’s Wife or Die an Old Maid.” One belle, upon hearing that her fiancé refused to enlist, sent her slave to deliver a package enclosing a Over her cowering beau, insisting, “Either you or I, sir.” One Alabama schoolgirl spoke for many of her peers when she declared, “I would not marry a coward.” At balls and parties girls In one, a musket-wielding woman dressed in trousers and a kepi looms Newspapers printed gender-bending cartoons that drove the point home. “In a land where women are worshipped by men, such language made them war-mad.” Rush out and meet the Yankee vandals,” he wrote of Southern women. “If every man did not hasten to battle, they vowed they would themselves A young English immigrant in Arkansas enlisted after being accosted at a recruitment meeting. They were the Confederate Army’s most persuasive and effective recruitment officers, shamingĪnyone who shirked his duty to fight. In the beginning of the war, Southern women wanted their men to leave - in droves, and as quickly as possible.
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