116-646: Sally Louisa Tompkins (November 9, 1833 – July 25, 1916) was a Confederate nurse and the first woman to have been formally inducted into an army in American history. She may have been the only woman officially commissioned in the Confederate Army . She is best remembered for privately sponsoring a hospital in Richmond, Virginia to treat soldiers wounded in the American Civil War . Under her supervision, she had
232-607: A centralized federal government in Richmond, Virginia , and enacted the first Confederate draft on April 16, 1862. By 1865, the Confederacy's federal government dissolved into chaos, and the Confederate States Congress adjourned , effectively ceasing to exist as a legislative body on March 18. After four years of heavy fighting, nearly all Confederate land and naval forces either surrendered or otherwise ceased hostilities by May 1865. The most significant capitulation
348-635: A "fabrication" in a 1981 New York Times review of Woodward's edition of the diaries. Lynn argues that the diary was "composed", rather than simply rewritten, in the 1881-84 period, emphasizing that Chesnut both omitted a great deal from the original diaries and added much new material: "She dwelt upon the personalities of people to whom she had previously referred only briefly, plucked a host of bygone conversations from her memory and interjected numerous authorial reflections on historical and personal events." Because neither Chesnut nor her later editors conceded that she had heavily revised her work, Lynn's view that
464-454: A "masterpiece" of the genre — as the most important work by a Confederate author. Mary Chesnut was born on March 31, 1823, on her maternal grandparents' plantation , called Mount Pleasant, near Stateburg, South Carolina , in the High Hills of Santee . Her parents were Stephen Decatur Miller (1788–1838), who had served as a U.S. Representative , and Mary Boykin (1804–85). In 1829 her father
580-578: A Congressman. Sara Pryor, Virginia Clay-Clopton and Louise Wigfall Wright wrote memoirs of the war years which were published in the early 20th century; their three works were particularly recommended by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to their large membership. Like many slaveowners, the Chesnuts faced financial difficulties after the war. They lost 1,000 slaves as property through emancipation. James Chesnut, Sr. died in 1866; his will left his son
696-435: A chapter back to Mathews. Since Sally's name was misspelled in the 1908 charter the group decided to petition as a new chapter with a new number, which became effective on August 22, 2000. So far, there are two published books dedicated to Tompkins life. The first one is a book of poetry based on Sally's life called Dearest of Captains. The second, is a biography written by a distant relative of Tompkins' called The Lady With
812-612: A family history. She also wrote three full novels that she never published: The Captain and the Colonel , completed about 1875; and Two Years of My Life , finished about the same time. She finished most of a draft of a third long novel, called Manassas . Elisabeth Muhlenfeld , who edited the first two novels for publication by the University of Virginia Press in 2002 and wrote a biography of Chesnut, described them as her writing "apprenticeship." Chesnut used her diary and notes to work toward
928-716: A few months later. Since the Tompkins family had done business in Richmond for many years, Tompkins and her sister were welcomed with open arms. They rented rooms in the city not knowing that Richmond would soon become the epicenter of the Civil War. Richmond became the capital city of the Confederacy after Virginia became one of the last of the Confederate states to secede from the Union in April 1861. It
1044-597: A final form of her book in 1881–1884, based on her extensive diary written during the war years. It was published in 1905, 19 years after her death. New versions were published after her papers were discovered, in 1949 by the novelist Ben Ames Williams , and in 1981 by the historian C. Vann Woodward , whose annotated edition of the diary, Mary Chesnut's Civil War (1981), won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1982. Literary critics have praised Chesnut's diary—the influential writer Edmund Wilson termed it "a work of art" and
1160-508: A final version in 1881–1884. Based on her drafts, historians do not believe she was finished with her work. Because Chesnut had no children, before her death she gave her diary to her closest friend, Isabella D. Martin, and urged her to have it published. The diary was first published in 1905 as a heavily edited and abridged edition. Williams' 1949 version was described as more readable, but sacrificing historical reliability and many of Chesnut's literary references. Chesnut's reputation rests on
1276-683: A male Chesnut descendant, and Mary Boykin Chesnut received almost no income. She also found her husband had many debts related to the estate which he had been unable to clear. She struggled in her last year, dying in 1886 at her home Sarsfield in Camden, South Carolina . She was buried next to her husband in Knights Hill Cemetery in Camden, South Carolina. Mary Boykin Chesnut began her diary on February 18, 1861, and ended it on June 26, 1865. She would write at
SECTION 10
#17328874755351392-527: A marker on the site where the Robertson Hospital once stood. Today, the marker still stands, but the original hospital building no longer survives. The site today is a 24-hour diner. There are also a number of Virginia historical markers in her hometown, dedicated to her life. During the Civil War Centennial in the 1960s, there were a number of efforts made to honor Tompkins' legacy. One of which
1508-561: A normal government, the expression of popular will". Fremantle went on to write in his book Three Months in the Southern States that he had: ...not attempted to conceal any of the peculiarities or defects of the Southern people. Many persons will doubtless highly disapprove of some of their customs and habits in the wilder portion of the country; but I think no generous man, whatever may be his political opinions, can do otherwise than admire
1624-401: A novelist does, an atmosphere, an emotional tone...Starting out with situations or relationships of which she cannot know the outcome, she takes advantage of the actual turn of events to develop them and round them out as if she were molding a novel. Chesnut has had some detractors, notably history professor Kenneth S. Lynn , of Johns Hopkins University . He described her work as a "hoax" and
1740-420: A panel of historians emphasized in 2011, "while slavery and its various and multifaceted discontents were the primary cause of disunion, it was disunion itself that sparked the war." Historian David M. Potter wrote: "The problem for Americans who, in the age of Lincoln, wanted slaves to be free was not simply that southerners wanted the opposite, but that they themselves cherished a conflicting value: they wanted
1856-455: A presidential proclamation issued April 15, 1861. It called for troops to recapture forts and suppress what Lincoln later called an "insurrection and rebellion". Mid-war parleys between the two sides occurred without formal political recognition, though the laws of war predominantly governed military relationships on both sides of uniformed conflict. Once war with the United States began,
1972-612: A sectional balance in the Senate but not in the House of Representatives , as free states outstripped slave states in numbers of eligible voters. Thus, at mid-19th century, the free-versus-slave status of the new territories was a critical issue, both for the North, where anti-slavery sentiment had grown, and for the South, where the fear of slavery's abolition had grown. Another factor leading to secession and
2088-542: A statement supporting or recognizing the Confederacy. In November 1863, Mann met Pope Pius IX and received a letter supposedly addressed "to the Illustrious and Honorable Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America"; Mann had mistranslated the address. In his report to Richmond, Mann claimed a great diplomatic achievement for himself, but Confederate Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin told Mann it
2204-480: A view that has been disproven by the overwhelming historical evidence against it, notably some of the seceding states' own secession documents . The principal political battle leading to Southern secession was over whether slavery would be permitted to expand into the Western territories destined to become states. Initially Congress had admitted new states into the Union in pairs, one slave and one free . This had kept
2320-453: Is too great, save that of honor". The message stated that if the French or British governments made their recognition conditional on anything at all, the Confederacy would consent to such terms. European leaders all saw that the Confederacy was on the verge of defeat. The Confederacy's biggest foreign policy successes were with Brazil and Cuba . Militarily this meant little. Brazil represented
2436-576: The Confederate States Army . She refused any payment for her services. On her military commission, dated September 9, 1861, she wrote, "I accepted the commission as Captain in the C.S.A. when it was offered. But, I would not allow my name to be placed upon the payroll of the army." The Robertson Hospital treated patients continuously throughout the war, discharging its last soldier on June 13, 1865. During its four-year existence, Robertson Hospital treated 1,334 wounded with only seventy-three deaths,
SECTION 20
#17328874755352552-559: The General Assembly from Jefferson City. The executive committee of the convention called the members together in July, and declared the state offices vacant and appointed a Unionist interim state government. The exiled governor called a rump session of the former General Assembly together in Neosho and, on October 31, 1861, it passed an ordinance of secession . The Confederate state government
2668-519: The Jim Crow laws through activities such as building Confederate monuments and influencing the authors of textbooks . The modern display of the Confederate battle flag primarily started during the 1948 presidential election , when the battle flag was used by the Dixiecrats . During the civil rights movement , racial segregationists used it for demonstrations. A consensus of historians who address
2784-449: The abuses of women's sexuality and the power exercised by white men. For instance, Chesnut discussed the problem of white slaveowners' fathering mixed-race children with enslaved women within their extended households. The mulattos one sees in every family ... resemble the white children. Any lady is ready to tell you who is the father of all the mulatto children in everybody's household but her own. Those, she seems to think, drop from
2900-694: The "peoples most identical to us in Institutions", in which slavery remained legal until the 1880s and the abolitionist movement was small. Confederate ships were welcome in Brazilian ports. After the war, Brazil was the primary destination of those Southerners who wanted to continue living in a slave society, where, as one immigrant remarked, Confederado slaves were cheap. The Captain–General of Cuba declared in writing that Confederate ships were welcome, and would be protected in Cuban ports. Historians speculate that if
3016-450: The 21st century agree on the centrality of slavery in the conflict, they disagree sharply on which aspects of this conflict (ideological, economic, political, or social) were most important, and on the North 's reasons for refusing to allow the Southern states to secede. Proponents of the pseudo-historical Lost Cause ideology have denied that slavery was the principal cause of the secession,
3132-733: The British Coldstream Guards , who entered the Confederacy via Mexico, Fitzgerald Ross of the Austrian Hussars , and Justus Scheibert of the Prussian Army . European travelers visited and wrote accounts for publication. Importantly in 1862, the Frenchman Charles Girard 's Seven months in the rebel states during the North American War testified "this government ... is no longer a trial government ... but really
3248-516: The British merchant fleet. In mid-1862, fears of a race war (like the Haitian Revolution of 1791–1804) led to the British considering intervention for humanitarian reasons. John Slidell, the Confederate States emissary to France, succeeded in negotiating a loan of $ 15,000,000 from Erlanger and other French capitalists for ironclad warships and military supplies. The British government did allow
3364-682: The Chesnuts had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances in the upper society of the South and government of the Confederacy. Among them were, for example, Confederate general John Bell Hood , politician John L. Manning , general and politician John S. Preston and his wife Caroline, general and politician Wade Hampton III , politician Clement C. Clay and his wife Virginia Clay-Clopton , and general and politician Louis T. Wigfall and his wife Charlotte (also known as Louise). The Chesnuts were also family friends of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his wife Varina Howell . Also among these circles were Sara Agnes Rice Pryor and her husband Roger,
3480-419: The Confederacy asserted its independence and appointed dozens of diplomatic agents abroad. None were recognized by a foreign government. The US government regarded the Southern states as being in rebellion or insurrection and so refused any formal recognition of their status. The US government never declared war on those "kindred and countrymen" in the Confederacy but conducted its military efforts beginning with
3596-502: The Confederacy by counties in East Tennessee were checked by martial law. Although slaveholding Delaware and Maryland did not secede, citizens exhibited divided loyalties. Regiments of Marylanders fought in Lee's Army of Northern Virginia . Overall, 24,000 men from Maryland joined Confederate forces, compared to 63,000 who joined Union forces. Delaware never produced a full regiment for
Sally Louisa Tompkins - Misplaced Pages Continue
3712-404: The Confederacy counted about one-fourth its population. They voted 43% for pro-Union candidates. The four states which entered after the attack on Fort Sumter held almost half the population of the Confederacy and voted 53% for pro-Union candidates. The three big turnout states voted extremes; Texas, with 5% of the population, voted 20% for pro-Union candidates; Kentucky and Missouri, with one-fourth
3828-436: The Confederacy had achieved independence, it probably would have tried to acquire Cuba as a base of expansion. Most soldiers who joined Confederate national or state military units joined voluntarily. Perman (2010) says historians are of two minds on why millions of soldiers seemed so eager to fight, suffer and die over four years: Mary Chesnut Mary Boykin Chesnut ( née Miller; March 31, 1823 – November 22, 1886)
3944-540: The Confederacy on March 16, 1861, and appointed Dr. Lewis S. Owings as the new territorial governor. They won the Battle of Mesilla and established a territorial government with Mesilla serving as its capital. The Confederacy proclaimed the Confederate Arizona Territory on February 14, 1862, north to the 34th parallel . Marcus H. MacWillie served in both Confederate Congresses as Arizona's delegate. In 1862,
4060-572: The Confederacy pinned its hopes for survival on military intervention by the UK or France . The Confederate government sent James M. Mason to London and John Slidell to Paris. On their way in 1861, the U.S. Navy intercepted their ship, the Trent, and took them to Boston, an international episode known as the Trent Affair . The diplomats were eventually released and continued their voyage. However, their mission
4176-630: The Confederacy valiantly fighting for a just cause, emerged in the decades after the war among former Confederate generals and politicians, and in organizations such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Sons of Confederate Veterans . Intense periods of Lost Cause activity developed around the turn of the 20th century and during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s in reaction to growing support for racial equality . Advocates sought to ensure future generations of Southern whites would continue to support white supremacist policies such as
4292-418: The Confederacy, but neither did it emancipate slaves as did Missouri and West Virginia. District of Columbia citizens made no attempts to secede and through the war, referendums sponsored by Lincoln approved compensated emancipation and slave confiscation from "disloyal citizens". Citizens at Mesilla and Tucson in the southern part of New Mexico Territory formed a secession convention, which voted to join
4408-407: The Confederacy. The war itself began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces bombarded the Union's Fort Sumter , in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina . Background factors in the run up to the Civil War were partisan politics , abolitionism , nullification versus secession , Southern and Northern nationalism, expansionism , economics , and modernization in the antebellum period . As
4524-678: The Confederate New Mexico campaign to take the northern half of the U.S. territory failed and the Confederate territorial government in exile relocated to San Antonio, Texas. Confederate supporters in the trans-Mississippi west claimed portions of the Indian Territory after the US evacuated the federal forts and installations. Over half of the American Indian troops participating in the War from
4640-570: The Confederate States of America. The new provisional Confederate President Jefferson Davis issued a call for 100,000 men from the states' militias to defend the newly formed Confederacy. All Federal property was seized, including gold bullion and coining dies at the U.S. mints in Charlotte , North Carolina; Dahlonega , Georgia; and New Orleans . The Confederate capital was moved from Montgomery to Richmond, Virginia, in May 1861. On February 22, 1862, Davis
4756-637: The Confederate Women's Home as an honored guest in 1905. Upon her death in 1916, Sally Tompkins was buried with full military honors at Christ Church in Mathews County. She joins the ranks of women like Clara Barton who responded to the urgent needs which were presented during the Civil War, especially after the Battle of First Bull Run when the realities of warfare became stark in both the Union and Confederate capital cities. They helped develop nursing into
Sally Louisa Tompkins - Misplaced Pages Continue
4872-504: The Confederate capital city was ill-prepared for the hundreds of wounded soldiers who subsequently poured in, many arriving via the Virginia Central Railroad . The shock brought the reality of the horrors of warfare directly home, as officials and citizens scrambled to take care of the overflow of injured and sick patients. Official hospitals were filled. Factories, churches, and even homes became temporary hospitals to accommodate
4988-431: The Confederate population, voted 68% for pro-Union. Following South Carolina's unanimous 1860 secession vote, no other Southern states considered the question until 1861; when they did, none had a unanimous vote. All had residents who cast significant numbers of Unionist votes. Voting to remain in the Union did not necessarily mean individuals were sympathizers with the North. Once fighting began, many who voted to remain in
5104-479: The Confederates "suffered a severe loss of confidence in themselves" and withdrew into an interior defensive position. By December 1864, Davis considered sacrificing slavery in order to enlist recognition and aid from Paris and London; he secretly sent Duncan F. Kenner to Europe with a message that the war was fought solely for "the vindication of our rights to self-government and independence" and that "no sacrifice
5220-653: The Constitution, which protected slavery, to be honored, and the Union, which was a fellowship with slaveholders, to be preserved. Thus they were committed to values that could not logically be reconciled." The first secession state conventions from the Deep South sent representatives to the Montgomery Convention in Alabama on February 4, 1861. A provisional government was established, and a representative Congress met for
5336-652: The Indian Territory supported the Confederacy. On July 12, 1861, the Confederate government signed a treaty with both the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indian nations. After several battles, Union armies took control of the territory. The Indian Territory never formally joined the Confederacy, but did receive representation in the Congress. Many Indians from the Territory were integrated into regular Confederate Army units. After 1863,
5452-592: The Milk White Hands . Tompkins was the aunt of painter Clementina Tompkins . Confederate States of America The Confederate States of America ( CSA ), commonly referred to as the Confederate States ( C.S. ), the Confederacy , or the South , was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 5, 1865. The Confederacy
5568-470: The South's biggest wartime hospitals. After the initial crisis had passed, Confederate President Jefferson Davis instituted regulations requiring military hospitals to be under military command. The Robertson Hospital had done such good work and was prepared to continue, that Confederate President Jefferson Davis commissioned Tompkins as a captain so that she could continue her work. She and Lucy Otey of Lynchburg were officially commissioned as officers in
5684-436: The South's slavery-based economy. The convergence of race and slavery, politics, and economics raised South-related policy questions to the status of moral questions over, way of life, merging love of things Southern and hatred of things Northern. As the war approached, political parties split, and national churches and interstate families divided along sectional lines. According to historian John M. Coski: The statesmen who led
5800-599: The St. James Episcopal Church and remained an active member there for most of her life. Sally was a local hero in Richmond. She hosted a reunion for her patients in the Grand Confederate Reunion of 1896. Veterans travelled near and far to pay their respects to the woman who had saved their lives so many years prior. She remained unmarried throughout her life and stayed active for many years in charitable work. Eventually, Tompkins' family fortune ran out, and she went to live in
5916-516: The Union accepted the majority decision, and supported the Confederacy. Many writers have evaluated the War as an American tragedy—a "Brothers' War", pitting "brother against brother, father against son, kin against kin of every degree". Initially, some secessionists hoped for a peaceful departure. Moderates in the Confederate Constitutional Convention included a provision against importation of slaves from Africa to appeal to
SECTION 50
#17328874755356032-569: The Union and Confederate sides as belligerents . In 1863, the Confederacy expelled European diplomatic missions for advising their resident subjects to refuse to serve in the Confederate army. Both Confederate and Union agents were allowed to work openly in British territories. The Confederacy appointed Ambrose Dudley Mann as special agent to the Holy See in September 1863, but the Holy See never released
6148-530: The Union victory at the Battle of Antietam , Lincoln's preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and abolitionist opposition in Britain put an end to these possibilities. The cost to Britain of a war with the U.S. would have been high: the immediate loss of American grain-shipments, the end of British exports to the U.S., and seizure of billions of pounds invested in American securities. War would have meant higher taxes in Britain, another invasion of Canada, and attacks on
6264-566: The Union. The federal government in Washington D.C. and states under its control were known as the Union . The Civil War began on April 12, 1861, when South Carolina's militia attacked Fort Sumter . Four slave states of the Upper South — Virginia , Arkansas , Tennessee , and North Carolina —then seceded and joined the Confederacy. On February 22, 1862, Confederate States Army leaders installed
6380-605: The United Daughters of the Confederacy are named after Tompkins, who was elected Honorary President of the Virginia Division in 1905. One of the chapters was founded in her hometown of Mathews, Virginia and was chartered in 1908 as the Captain Sallie Tompkins Chapter. It was deactivated in 1955. Following an article in the local newspaper in July 1999, a small group of "daughters" met and resolved to bring
6496-402: The United States . The Confederacy was formed on February 8, 1861, by South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. They adopted a new constitution establishing a confederation government of "sovereign and independent states". Some Northerners reacted by saying "Let the Confederacy go in peace!", while some Southerners wanted to maintain their loyalty to
6612-519: The Upper South. Non-slave states might join, but the radicals secured a two-thirds requirement in both houses of Congress to accept them. Seven states declared their secession from the United States before Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861. After the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter April 12, 1861, and Lincoln's subsequent call for troops, four more states declared their secession. Kentucky declared neutrality, but after Confederate troops moved in,
6728-630: The approach of Federal armies in mid-1862, the government's archives were readied for removal. As the Wilderness Campaign progressed, Congress authorized Davis to remove the executive department and call Congress to session elsewhere in 1864 and again in 1865. Shortly before the end of the war, the Confederate government evacuated Richmond, planning to relocate further south. Little came of these plans before Lee's surrender. Davis and most of his cabinet fled to Danville, Virginia , which served as their headquarters for eight days. During its four years,
6844-667: The blockade tightened along the coast, the city faced riots in the streets. When supplies were difficult to get within the city, The Robertson Hospital hired a blockade runner to bring necessities from abroad. Since Tompkins and a number of the other women had remained constant at the hospital through the war, they ultimately won the love and respect of their patients. Tompkins received many marriage proposals from former patients out of gratitude for what she had done, all of which she declined. More than 1,300 men fortunate to be sent to Robertson Hospital called her simply "Captain Sally." When Richmond
6960-427: The capitals of Washington, D.C., and Richmond. She suffered from depression , in part because of her inability to have children, and she occasionally took opium . The Chesnuts' marriage was at times stormy owing to their differences in temperament (she was more hot-tempered and sometimes considered her husband reserved), but their companionship was mostly warm and affectionate. As Mary Chesnut describes in her diary,
7076-420: The clouds. Chesnut was a sympathizer and spy for the Union. Her nursing skills revolutionized the manner in which the wounded were cared for during wartime. [1] Examination of Mary Chesnut's papers has revealed the history of her development as a writer and of her work on the diary as a book. Before working to revise her diary as a book in the 1880s, Chesnut wrote a translation of French poetry, essays, and
SECTION 60
#17328874755357192-413: The construction of blockade runners in Britain; they were owned and operated by British financiers and shipowners; a few were owned and operated by the Confederacy. The British investors' goal was to acquire highly profitable cotton. Several European nations maintained diplomats in place who had been appointed to the U.S., but no country appointed any diplomat to the Confederacy. Those nations recognized
7308-575: The courage, energy, and patriotism of the whole population, and the skill of its leaders, in this struggle against great odds. And I am also of opinion that many will agree with me in thinking that a people in which all ranks and both sexes display a unanimity and a heroism which can never have been surpassed in the history of the world, is destined, sooner or later, to become a great and independent nation. French Emperor Napoleon III assured Confederate diplomat John Slidell that he would make "direct proposition" to Britain for joint recognition. The Emperor made
7424-499: The election of Abraham Lincoln . Once the Civil War began, Chesnut became an aide to President Jefferson Davis and was commissioned a brigadier general in the Confederate Army . The couple resided at Chesnut Cottage in Columbia during the Civil War period. Intelligent and witty, Mary Chesnut took part in her husband's career, as entertaining was an important part of building political networks. She had her best times when they were in
7540-498: The end of transatlantic enslavement of Africans; by 1833 , the Royal Navy patrolled middle passage waters to prevent additional slave ships from reaching the Western Hemisphere. It was in London that the first World Anti-Slavery Convention had been held in 1840. Black abolitionist speakers toured England, Scotland, and Ireland, exposing the reality of America's chattel slavery and rebutting the Confederate position that blacks were "unintellectual, timid, and dependent", and "not equal to
7656-450: The fact that she created literature while keeping the sense of events unfolding; she described people in penetrating and enlivening terms and conveyed a novelistic sense of events through a "mixture of reportage, memoir and social criticism". Critic and writer Edmund Wilson summarized her achievement: The very rhythm of her opening pages at once puts us under the spell of a writer who is not merely jotting down her days but establishing, as
7772-406: The first shots of the Civil War; Columbia, South Carolina, where her husband served as the Chief of the Department of the Military of South Carolina and brigadier general in command of South Carolina reserve forces; and again Richmond, where her husband served as an aide to the president. At times, they also lived with his parents at their house at Mulberry Plantation near Camden. While the property
7888-455: The formation of the Confederacy was the development of white Southern nationalism in the preceding decades. The primary reason for the North to reject secession was to preserve the Union, a cause based on American nationalism . Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 presidential election . His victory triggered declarations of secession by seven slave states of the Deep South , all of whose riverfront or coastal economies were based on cotton that
8004-458: The glorious cause of southern independence. They demanded that their own states join the cause. Scores of demonstrations took place from April 12 to 14, before Lincoln issued his call for troops. Many conditional unionists were swept along by this powerful tide of southern nationalism; others were cowed into silence. Historian Daniel W. Crofts disagrees with McPherson: The bombardment of Fort Sumter, by itself, did not destroy Unionist majorities in
8120-539: The hundreds of thousands. Secessionists argued that the United States Constitution was a contract among sovereign states that could be abandoned without consultation and each state had a right to secede. After intense debates and statewide votes, seven Deep South cotton states passed secession ordinances by February 1861, while secession efforts failed in the other eight slave states. The Confederacy expanded in May–July 1861 (with Virginia , Arkansas , Tennessee , North Carolina ), and disintegrated in April–May 1865. It
8236-445: The local community, both free and enslaved. Details of Tompkins' childhood are unknown since many records have not survived. What is known is that Tompkins, her mother, and her surviving sister, Maria, left Poplar Grove and lived in Norfolk from 1849 to 1852. While in Norfolk, Tompkins and her sister studied at the Norfolk Female Institute. In January 1854, Tompkins, her mother, and Maria moved to Richmond, Virginia. Tompkins' mother died
8352-633: The lowest death rate of any hospital Union or Confederate, during the Civil War. She has been remembered as the "Angel of the Confederacy". Sally Tompkins was born on November 9, 1833, at Poplar Grove in the Tidewater Region of Virginia's Middle Peninsula . She was the youngest of Colonel Christopher Tompkins' eight children. Colonel Tompkins eventually became a very wealthy merchant, doing business in Mathews County , Norfolk , and Richmond , Virginia. On August 16, 1838, Colonel Tompkins died. Sally
8468-453: The lowest mortality rate of any military hospital during the Civil War. Author and Civil War diarist Mary Chesnut was a frequent visitor to the hospital. She recorded "Our Florence Nightingale is Sally Tompkins." Another diarist, Judith McGuire, was a volunteer at the hospital and included many vivid descriptions of nursing the patients while there. Running a hospital was not without its trials. Richmond depended on imports for trade and when
8584-428: The ordinance of secession. In the 1860 election "Constitutional Democrat" Breckenridge had outpolled "Constitutional Unionist" Bell in the 50 counties by 1,900 votes, 44% to 42%. The counties simultaneously supplied over 20,000 soldiers to each side of the conflict. Representatives for most counties were seated in both state legislatures at Wheeling and at Richmond for the duration of the war. Attempts to secede from
8700-465: The origins of the American Civil War agree that the preservation of the institution of slavery was the principal aim of the eleven Southern states (seven states before the onset of the war and four states after the onset) that declared their secession from the United States (the Union ) and united to form the Confederate States of America (known as the "Confederacy"). However, while historians in
8816-521: The other three candidates (Abraham Lincoln, Stephen A. Douglas and John Bell ). Support for these three collectively, ranged from significant to outright majority, running from 25% in Texas to 81% in Missouri. There were minority views everywhere, especially in the upland and plateau areas of the South, particularly concentrated in western Virginia and eastern Tennessee. The first six signatory states establishing
8932-538: The outset: “This journal is intended to be entirely objective. My subjective days are over.” Chesnut was an eyewitness to many historic events as she accompanied her husband to significant sites of the American Civil War. Among them were Montgomery, Alabama , and Richmond, Virginia , where the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America convened; Charleston , where she was among witnesses of
9048-607: The populous counties along the Ohio and Pennsylvania borders rejected the Confederacy. Unionists held a Convention in Wheeling in June 1861, establishing a "restored government" with a rump legislature , but sentiment in the region remained deeply divided. In the 50 counties that would make up the state of West Virginia , voters from 24 counties had voted for disunion in Virginia's May 23 referendum on
9164-456: The pro-Confederate claimants in Kentucky (December 10, 1861) and Missouri (November 28, 1861) and laid claim to those states, granting them Congressional representation and adding two stars to the Confederate flag. Voting for the representatives was mostly done by Confederate soldiers from Kentucky and Missouri. Some southern unionists blamed Lincoln's call for troops as the precipitating event for
9280-405: The same assurance to British Members of Parliament John A. Roebuck and John A. Lindsay. Roebuck in turn publicly prepared a bill to submit to Parliament supporting joint Anglo-French recognition of the Confederacy. "Southerners had a right to be optimistic, or at least hopeful, that their revolution would prevail, or at least endure." Following the disasters at Vicksburg and Gettysburg in July 1863,
9396-449: The secession movement were unashamed to explicitly cite the defense of slavery as their prime motive ... Acknowledging the centrality of slavery to the Confederacy is essential for understanding the Confederate. Southern Democrats had chosen John Breckinridge as their candidate during the 1860 presidential election, but in no Southern state was support for him unanimous, as they recorded at least some popular vote for at least one of
9512-476: The second wave of secessions. Historian James McPherson argues such claims have "a self-serving quality" and regards them as misleading: As the telegraph chattered reports of the attack on Sumter April 12 and its surrender next day, huge crowds poured into the streets of Richmond, Raleigh, Nashville, and other upper South cities to celebrate this victory over the Yankees. These crowds waved Confederate flags and cheered
9628-461: The sense of the South's living through its time on a world stage, and she captured the growing difficulties of all classes of the Confederacy as they faced defeat at the end of the war. Chesnut analyzed and portrayed the various classes of the South throughout the war, providing a detailed view of Southern society and especially of the mixed roles of men and women. She was forthright about the complex and fraught situations related to slavery, particularly
9744-428: The skilled profession it was to become. Sally Tompkins reported obsession with cleanliness led to progress in sanitation during treatment. Her proven lower mortality rates as a result are exceptionally notable among her many legacies to the United States and medical providers everywhere, practices still in widespread use. A number of monuments commemorate Captain Sally and the Robertson Hospital. In 1910, Sally unveiled
9860-578: The state legislature asked for Union troops to drive them out. Delegates from 68 Kentucky counties were sent to the Russellville Convention that signed an Ordinance of Secession. Kentucky was admitted into the Confederacy on December 10, 1861, with Bowling Green as its first capital. Early in the war, the Confederacy controlled more than half of Kentucky but largely lost control in 1862. The splinter Confederate government of Kentucky relocated to accompany western Confederate armies and never controlled
9976-496: The state population after 1862. By the end of the war, 90,000 Kentuckians had fought for the Union, compared to 35,000 for the Confederacy. In Missouri , a constitutional convention was approved and delegates elected. The convention rejected secession 89–1 on March 19, 1861. The governor maneuvered to take control of the St. Louis Arsenal and restrict Federal movements. This led to a confrontation, and in June federal forces drove him and
10092-491: The states' militia to muster under his command. The stated purpose was to re-occupy U.S. properties throughout the South, as the U.S. Congress had not authorized their abandonment. The resistance at Fort Sumter signaled his change of policy from that of the Buchanan Administration. Lincoln's response ignited a firestorm of emotion. The people of both North and South demanded war, with soldiers rushing to their colors in
10208-663: The tribal governments sent representatives to the Confederate Congress : Elias Cornelius Boudinot representing the Cherokee and Samuel Benton Callahan representing the Seminole and Creek . The Cherokee Nation aligned with the Confederacy. They practiced and supported slavery, opposed abolition, and feared their lands would be seized by the Union. After the war, the Indian territory was disestablished, their black slaves were freed, and
10324-521: The tribes lost some of their lands. Montgomery, Alabama , served as capital of the Confederate States from February 4 until May 29, 1861, in the Alabama State Capitol . Six states created the Confederacy there on February 8, 1861. The Texas delegation was seated at the time, so it is counted in the "original seven" states of the Confederacy; it had no roll call vote until after its referendum made secession "operative". The Permanent Constitution
10440-550: The upper South. Because only three days elapsed before Lincoln issued the proclamation, the two events viewed retrospectively, appear almost simultaneous. Nevertheless, close examination of contemporary evidence ... shows that the proclamation had a far more decisive impact. ...Many concluded ... that Lincoln had deliberately chosen "to drive off all the Slave states, in order to make war on them and annihilate slavery". The order of secession resolutions and dates are: In Virginia,
10556-429: The use of Mulberry Plantation and Sandy Hill, both of which were encumbered by debt, and 83 slaves by name, who were by then freedmen . The younger Chesnut struggled to build the plantations and support his father's dependents. By his father's will, James Chesnut, Jr. had the use of Mulberry and Sandy Hill plantations only during his lifetime. In February 1885, both he and Mary's mother died. The plantations passed on to
10672-513: The white man...the superior race." Frederick Douglass , Henry Highland Garnet , Sarah Parker Remond , her brother Charles Lenox Remond , James W. C. Pennington , Martin Delany , Samuel Ringgold Ward , and William G. Allen all spent years in Britain, where fugitive slaves were safe and, as Allen said, there was an "absence of prejudice against color. Here the colored man feels himself among friends, and not among enemies". Most British public opinion
10788-400: The whole project is a fraud is a minority one. In 1982, Woodward's edition of Chesnut's diary won a Pulitzer Prize . A few years later, Ken Burns used extensive readings from Chesnut's diary in his documentary television series The Civil War . Actress Julie Harris read these sections. In 2000, Mulberry Plantation , the house of James and Mary Boykin Chesnut in Camden, South Carolina ,
10904-656: The wounded. At nearly 28 years old, Tompkins was among the civilians who responded by opening the home of Judge John Robertson as a hospital. Judge Robertson had taken his family to the countryside for safety and left his home to Sally to use as a hospital for as long as she needed. Sally was not alone in this effort. Many ladies from the Saint James Episcopal Church, as well as several enslaved people, ran what became known as Robertson Hospital. The women of Saint James Episcopal were collectively known as "The Ladies of Robertson Hospital." Robertson Hospital became one of
11020-648: The élite of the slaveowner class. Talvande was among the many French colonial refugees who had settled in Charleston from Saint-Domingue (Haiti) after the Haitian Revolution . Miller became fluent in French and German, and received a strong education. Leaving politics, her father took his family to Mississippi , where he bought extensive acreage. It was a crude, rough frontier compared to Charleston. He owned three cotton plantations and hundreds of slaves. Mary lived in Mississippi for short periods between school terms but
11136-489: The “Old Colonel”), had gradually purchased and reunited the land holdings of his father John. He was said to have owned about five square miles at the maximum and to hold about 500 slaves by 1849. In 1858, by then an established lawyer and politician, James Chesnut, Jr. was elected a U.S. senator from South Carolina, a position he held until South Carolina's secession from the United States in December 1860, shortly following
11252-458: Was "a mere inferential recognition, unconnected with political action or the regular establishment of diplomatic relations" and thus did not assign it the weight of formal recognition. Nevertheless, the Confederacy was seen internationally as a serious attempt at nationhood, and European governments sent military observers to assess whether there had been a de facto establishment of independence. These observers included Arthur Lyon Fremantle of
11368-541: Was Confederate general Robert E. Lee 's surrender on April 9, after which any doubt about the war's outcome or the Confederacy's survival was extinguished. Confederate President Davis's administration declared the Confederacy dissolved on May 5. After the war, during the Reconstruction era , the Confederate states were readmitted to the Congress after each ratified the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlawing slavery. Lost Cause mythology , an idealized view of
11484-404: Was a stained glass memorial window in the St. James Episcopal Church depicting Captain Sally overseen by an angel. There was also an effort to put a statue of Captain Sally on Monument Avenue in Richmond. The design for the statue was done by the surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and sparked outrage throughout the city. Thus the plan to build a statue to her was never completed. Three chapters of
11600-551: Was adopted there on March 12, 1861. The permanent capital provided for in the Confederate Constitution called for a state cession of a 100 square mile district to the central government. Atlanta, which had not yet supplanted Milledgeville , Georgia, as its state capital, put in a bid noting its central location and rail connections, as did Opelika, Alabama , noting its strategically interior situation, rail connections and deposits of coal and iron. Richmond, Virginia ,
11716-561: Was against the practice, with Liverpool seen as the primary base of Southern support. Throughout the early years of the war, British foreign secretary Lord John Russell , Emperor Napoleon III of France, and, to a lesser extent, British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston , showed interest in recognition of the Confederacy or at least mediation of the war. Chancellor of the Exchequer William Gladstone attempted unsuccessfully to convince Palmerston to intervene. By September 1862
11832-406: Was almost five years old at the time. Tompkins' older sister, Elizabeth, had been active in restoring the local Christ Church, an Episcopal church that had fallen into disrepair. Elizabeth and Sally were very close to each other. Tompkins was devastated when three of her sisters (Martha, Harriet, and Elizabeth) died only a few weeks apart due to a local epidemic in 1842. Tompkins nursed the sick in
11948-443: Was an American writer noted for a book published as her Civil War diary, a "vivid picture of a society in the throes of its life-and-death struggle." She described the war from within her upper-class circles of Southern slaveowner society, but encompassed all classes in her book. She was married to James Chesnut Jr. , a lawyer who served as a United States senator and officer in the Confederate States Army . Chesnut worked toward
12064-547: Was chosen for the interim capital at the Virginia State Capitol . The move was used by Vice President Stephens and others to encourage other border states to follow Virginia into the Confederacy. In the political moment it was a show of "defiance and strength". The war for Southern independence was surely to be fought in Virginia, but it also had the largest Southern military-aged white population, with infrastructure, resources, and supplies. The Davis Administration's policy
12180-509: Was composed of eleven U.S. states that declared secession ; South Carolina , Mississippi , Florida , Alabama , Georgia , Louisiana , Texas , Virginia , Arkansas , Tennessee , and North Carolina ; they warred against the United States during the American Civil War . With Abraham Lincoln 's election as President of the United States in 1860, a portion of the southern states were convinced that their slavery-dependent plantation economies were threatened, and began to secede from
12296-541: Was cultivated by slave labor. They formed the Confederate States of America after Lincoln was elected in November 1860 but before he took office in March 1861. Nationalists in the North and "Unionists" in the South refused to accept the declarations of secession. No foreign government ever recognized the Confederacy. The U.S. government, under President James Buchanan , refused to relinquish its forts that were in territory claimed by
12412-462: Was elected Governor of South Carolina and in 1831 as a U.S. senator . The family then lived in Charleston . Mary was the oldest of four children; she had a younger brother Stephen and two sisters: Catherine and Sarah Amelia. At age 13, Miller began her formal education in Charleston, South Carolina, where she boarded at Madame Talvande's French School for Young Ladies, which attracted daughters from
12528-420: Was evacuated in April 1865, Sally and several volunteers chose to stay at the hospital to treat the last of the patients. Through negotiation with the Union medical director, Sally was allowed to keep her hospital open for another two months after the war. Once the hospital was finally closed, Tompkins traveled around Virginia visiting many old friends and relatives. She also volunteered to teach Sunday school at
12644-704: Was formed by delegations from seven slave states of the Lower South that had proclaimed their secession. After the fighting began in April, four additional slave states seceded and were admitted. Later, two slave states ( Missouri and Kentucky ) and two territories were given seats in the Confederate Congress. Its establishment flowed from and deepened Southern nationalism, which prepared men to fight for "The Southern Cause". This "Cause" included support for states' rights , tariff policy , and internal improvements, but above all, cultural and financial dependence on
12760-468: Was generally thought by both North and South alike that the armed conflict would end quickly. After the first battle, the nation realized that the war would be much longer than they imagined. The First Battle of Bull Run —also known as the First Battle of Manassas—on July 21, 1861, was a Southern tactical victory that opened the Civil War in the first major hand-to-hand combat. Despite the word of victory,
12876-439: Was inaugurated as president with a term of six years. The Confederate administration pursued a policy of national territorial integrity, continuing earlier state efforts in 1860–1861 to remove U.S. government presence. This included taking possession of U.S. courts, custom houses, post offices, and most notably, arsenals and forts. After the Confederate attack and capture of Fort Sumter in April 1861, Lincoln called up 75,000 of
12992-418: Was relatively isolated in thousands of acres of plantation and woodland, they entertained many visitors. Chesnut was aware of the historical importance of what she witnessed. The diary was filled with the cycle of changing fortunes of the South during the Civil War. Chesnut edited the diary, wrote new drafts in 1881–1884 for publication, and retained the sense of events unfolding without foreknowledge. She had
13108-481: Was reportedly more fond of the city. In 1836, while in Charleston, 13-year-old Mary Boykin Miller met her future husband, James Chesnut, Jr. (1815–85), who was eight years her senior. At age 17, Miller married Chesnut on April 23, 1840. They first lived with his parents and sisters at Mulberry , their plantation near Camden, South Carolina . His father, James Chesnut, Sr. (whom Mary referred to throughout her diaries as
13224-491: Was that "It must be held at all hazards." The naming of Richmond as the new capital took place on May 30, 1861, and the last two sessions of the Provisional Congress were held there. As war dragged on, Richmond became crowded with training and transfers, logistics and hospitals. Prices rose dramatically despite government efforts at price regulation. A movement in Congress argued for moving the capital from Richmond. At
13340-500: Was unable to control substantial parts of Missouri territory, effectively only controlling southern Missouri early in the war. It had its capital at Neosho, then Cassville , before being driven out of the state. For the remainder of the war, it operated as a government in exile at Marshall, Texas . Not having seceded, neither Kentucky nor Missouri was declared in rebellion in Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation . The Confederacy recognized
13456-426: Was unsuccessful; historians judge their diplomacy as poor. Neither secured diplomatic recognition for the Confederacy, much less military assistance. The Confederates who had believed that " cotton is king ", that is, that Britain had to support the Confederacy to obtain cotton, proved mistaken. The British had stocks to last over a year and been developing alternative sources. The United Kingdom took pride leading
#534465