Anna personally met with President Lincoln to discuss payment for the pamphlets she had published on his behalf. She demanded a payment of $50,000. President Lincoln told her that such an amount was outrageous and offered her $750, which she accepted.
In August 1862, President Lincoln sent Anna on an espionage mission to St. Louis, Missouri. She was assigned to accompany another operative, Lemuel Evans. During the trip, their mission was to scout Confederate fortifications and to deliver messages and information to the Union officers stationed in the area. The trip was a complete success with no problems.
While traveling on the Mississippi River in an attempt to gain the information she needed, she became acquainted with an old ship’s captain named Winfred Scott. To occupy her time during the long periods of sailing, Captain Scott allowed her to see his river charts and maps. After reviewing the charts of the Tennessee River and with the help of Captain Scott and Lemuel Evans, a plan to shorten or end the war was formulated. Anna returned to Washington in late November 1861 with her information and the plan the three had made for ending the war.
During her report on the Confederate fortifications she introduced her plan for ending the war. Her plan called for sending the Union army up the Tennessee River to take Fort Donelson and Fort Henry and to open the way for the Union invasion of the Confederacy. The idea was so unusual that the President convened his cabinet to discuss it. The generals did not like this bold plan, especially since a woman thought of it. However, the War Department eventually adopted the plan and credit was given to General Ulysses Grant.
In early February 1862, General Grant began the Tennessee River Campaign by attacking Fort Henry in Kentucky. This was the Tennessee River stronghold. The river was high and Fort Henry was awash with floodwater. Most of the Confederate soldiers had been sent to Fort Donelson, leaving only 100 artillery men at Fort Henry to face General Grant’s 15,000 men and four gun boats. They surrendered on February 6, 1862, after a short bombardment from the gunboats.
General Grant then marched to Fort Donelson where, after repelling the gun boats, General John Floyd escaped with 2,000 Confederate troops leaving General Grant’s old friend General Simon B. Buckner in charge. General Grant demanded an unconditional surrender. General Buckner agreed and the route to the invasion of the South was established. Anna Ella Carroll’s plan had worked as she predicted.
Anna filed her claim with the government for her expenses while on the mission and for the $60,000 President Lincoln promised her for her plan. President Lincoln had also promised her a pension for her service to the Union, but his assassination squashed any hopes she had of ever being paid or receiving a pension.
Anna fought for several years with the government for her pay and her pension but was unsuccessful. She returned to the work of a pamphlet writer and railroad attorney. In 1886 she struck her final blow against the injustice she had suffered when she published a brochure, “North American Review,” in which she condemned male injustice.
Anna Ella Carroll. From My Dear Lady. Whittlesey House, 1940.
Her sister, who held a government job in Washington, D.C., was her primary means of support during the last 20 years of Anna’s life.
Anna died on February 19, 1893, at the age of 78 in Washington, D.C. She was buried in the churchyard of Old Trinity Church in Cambridge, Maryland.
Her head stone reads:
Anna Ella Carroll
Daughter of Thomas King and Jolianna Stevenson Carroll
Born at Kingston Hall, August 29, 1815
Died at Washington, D.C.
February 19, 1893
A woman gifted—An able and accomplished writer
35
Barbara Frietchie: Legendary Union Patriot
Barbara Frietchie was born in Frederick, Maryland, in 1766. The widow of a glove maker, she was still living in Frederick in 1862 when General Lee’s army first invaded the North. She died in Frederick, Maryland, in December 1862, just two weeks after her ninety-sixth birthday. Prior to her death she was credited with a brave act of defiance against the Confederacy.
The story goes that at 3 a.m. on September 10, 1862, she was awakened by General T. J. Jackson’s troops marching past her home. As the troops entered Frederick, the 95-year-old patriot bravely and defiantly leaned out the upstairs window of her home and waved a Union flag as they passed. Another version of the story states that she thought, at first, that the soldiers who were entering Frederick were Union soldiers and as a patriot she wanted to greet them by waving the flag. When she discovered that the soldiers were Confederates she became angered and defiantly waved it in their faces.
Dr. Lewis H. Steiner of the United States Sanitary Commission wrote of the events of the week that Jackson’s troops entered Frederick. He did not mention Barbara Frietchie but claimed that an anonymous old woman in Frederick had shaken her small fists at the Confederate invaders and screamed at them when she saw them dragging the American flag in the dust behind them. She shouted, “My curses upon you and your officers for degrading your country’s flag!”
Barbara Frietchie’s defiant flag waving merged with Dr. Steiner’s anonymous woman and Barbara was credited with both incidents even though another Frederick woman claimed to be the anonymous woman. Some other reports claim that
Barbara was bedridden and could not have stood and leaned out of the window waving the flag. The only supporting evidence of the incident is that General Early demanded a ransom of $200,000 in gold from Frederick for the insult to his troops. The city of Frederick borrowed the money from many other banks and paid the ransom to save their town. It took Frederick, Maryland, so long to pay back the loans that the city ended up paying $600,000 in interest. This retribution does not prove that the incident actually occurred. It only proves that there was a publicized insult to the Confederacy.
Barbara’s niece forwarded the story to C. S. Ramsburg of Georgetown, Maryland, who had it published in a Washington newspaper.
Mrs. Southworth, a leading American novelist and a neighbor of Barbara’s niece, wrote a narrative of the events and forwarded it to John Greenleaf Whittier.
Whittier, a Quaker poet, was impressed by the story of the brave old woman and composed a 30 verse poem which was published by Mr. Whittier’s editor, James R. Field, in the Atlantic Monthly.
The poem was an immediate hit, and was reprinted widely. However, Barbara evidently knew nothing about becoming famous because she died two weeks before the poem was published. The poem goes:
Up from the meadows rich with corn,
Clear in the cool September morn,
The clustered spires of Frederick stand
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.
Round about them orchards sweep,
Apple and peach tree fruited deep,
Fair as a garden of the Lord
To the eyes of the famished rebel horde,
On that pleasant morn of the early fall
When Lee marched over the mountain-wall,
Over the mountains winding down,
Horse and foot, into Frederick town.
Forty flags with their silver stars,
Forty flags with their crimson bars,
Flapped in the morning wind: the sun
Of noon looked down, and saw not one.
Up rose old Barbara Frietchie then,
Bowed with her fourscore years and ten;
Bravest of all in Frederick town,
She took up the flag the men hauled down;
In her attic window the staff she set,
To show that one heart was loyal yet.
Up the street came the rebel tread,
Stonewall Jackson riding ahead.
Under his slouched hat left and right
He glanced; the old flag met his sight.
“Halt!”—the dust-brown ranks stood fast,
“Fire!”—out blazed the rifle blast.
It shivered the window, pane and sash;
It rent the banner wi
th seam and gash.
Quick, as it fell, from the broken staff
Dame Barbara snatched the silken scarf;
She leaned far out on the window-sill,
And shook it forth with a royal will.
“Shoot, if you must, this old gray head,
But spare your country’s flag,” she said.
A shade of sadness, a blush of shame,
Over the face of the leader came;
The nobler nature within him stirred
To life at that woman’s deed and word:
“Who touches a hair on yon gray head
Dies like a dog! March on!” he said.
All day long through Frederick Street
Sounded the tread of marching feet;
All day long that free flag tost
Over the heads of the rebel host.
Ever its torn folds rose and fell
On the loyal winds that loved it well;
And through the hill-gaps sunset light
Shone over it with a warm good-night.
Barbara Frietchie’s work is o’er,
And the Rebel rides on his raids no more.
Honor to her! and let a tear
Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall’s bier.
Over Barbara Frietchie’s grave,
Flag of Freedom and Union, wave!
Peace and order and beauty draw
Round thy symbol of light and law;
And ever the stars above look down
On thy stars below in Frederick town!
There is no historical evidence to support this story. The only evidence available shows that it could not have been Barbara since she was bedridden during the Confederate occupation of Frederick and therefore could not have seen General Jackson. It is also known that General Jackson entered the town riding in an ambulance since he had been slightly injured by a horse and therefore she could not have seen him ride in.
What is known, however, is that after the Confederate troops had left Frederick and the Union troops were marching into the town, Barbara was brought out to sit on her porch and watch them pass by. She was given a small flag on a small staff, which she waved as the Union army re-occupied Frederick.
36
Civil War Heroines
Many women who were loyal to either the Confederacy or the Union felt the need to do their part. Most who felt this way never had the chance to help. However, when an opportunity did arise, those in a position to help came willingly to the aid of their cause. Such is the case of the following heroic women.
Lola, Panchita, and Eugenia Sanchez—Confederate Patriots
The Sanchez sisters were daughters of a Cuban immigrant who was living in Florida when the Civil War began. These three sisters made their contribution to the Confederate war effort by passing vital military information to the Confederate troops. Their information helped win a Confederate victory.
Several Union officers visiting on the front porch of the Sanchez home turned their discussions to their planned use of a gunboat to attack the Confederate fortifications in the area. Lola, eavesdropping, overheard this conversation and went to tell her sisters.
The girls, realizing the value of this information, immediately formulated a plan to relate the information to the Confederacy. Panchita and Eugenia stayed behind to divert the attention of the Union officers while Lola saddled her horse and rode unnoticed through the woods behind her home to the nearby Confederate lines.
The information Lola gave the Confederates allowed them the time they needed to surprise and capture the Union gunboat. To honor the Sanchez sisters for their service, the Confederacy renamed the gunboat “The Three Sisters.” The Sanchez sisters were never caught or arrested.
Antoinette Polk—Confederate Patriot
Antoinette Polk was a young girl from Columbia, Tennessee, who was instrumental in helping a group of Confederate soldiers avoid capture by Union troops. The Confederate officers were visiting her father at the family estate, Ashwood Hall, which was located just outside of Union-occupied Columbia.
Antoinette, like most young girls of the time, was a skilled rider. One day while riding into Columbia with a female cousin, she came upon a division of Union cavalry and soon learned that they were preparing to search the surrounding area for Confederate sympathizers.
Knowing that a group of confederate soldiers were visiting with her father she became determined to save them from being captured and her father from being arrested as a confederate sympathizer. Antoinette and her cousin raced home ahead of the Union soldiers and arrived just in time for the visiting Confederate soldiers to make their safe retreat.
The Union troops never suspected and never knew how close they came to finding their quarry.
Laura Ratcliffe—Confederate Spy
Laura Ratcliffe was living with her mother and two sisters on a small farm at a crossroads west of Washington, D.C., called Frying Pan, Virginia, when the Civil War began.
Laura was described as a beautiful brunette with dark eyes and a fair complexion. She was a loyal southern girl and became involved in the war when she brought attention to herself by nursing the fallen Confederate soldiers in her area.
General J.E.B. Stuart was quite impressed with her after hearing about her devotion to the fallen soldiers and her patriotism to the south. General Stuart was so taken with her that in late December he introduced her to Colonel John Singleton Mosby as a possible source of future information about the area.
On many occasions Colonel Mosby used the Ratcliffe farm as his area headquarters. The farm was also used as a storage area for confiscated Union material and money until it could be safely transferred to the proper Confederate authorities. Confiscated money and documents were safely hidden under a huge rock on the Ratcliffe farm. The Confederates knew this hidden place as “Mosby’s Rock.” Mosby and other operatives also used the rock as a letter drop and rendezvous spot. Federal agents searched the Ratcliffe Farm many times, but found nothing.
When Laura carried messages and information to and from Colonel Mosby, she concealed the information in a false-bottomed egg basket. She was under suspicion of the Union authorities but never caught or arrested.
On one occasion two Union soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Palmer of the 1st Virginian Regiment stopped at the Ratcliffe home for fresh milk. While there they began to brag to Laura about an ambush they had set up for Colonel Mosby when he rode into Frying Pan. They taunted her that her “pal” Mosby would soon be dead or their prisoner, and there was nothing she could do about it. She had no horse to ride to warn Mosby and the roads were too muddy for her to walk on.
After the two Union soldiers left she was determined to warn Colonel Mosby. She ran through the muddy fields and roads until she spotted a troop of soldiers in blue riding toward the trap. She recognized Colonel Mosby leading his men. She told him of the plan for an ambush as he rode into Frying Pan.
With this information Colonel Mosby quickly changed his plans and turned away from Frying Pan to raid a Federal picket near Dranesville, where he took 15 Union soldiers prisoner and confiscated their horses and equipment.
Colonel Mosby was grateful to Laura for saving his life. He gave her his watch chain with a note as a gift. The note was a short poem to her, which read, “And when this page shall meet your glance / Forget not him you met by chance.”
After the war ended Laura lived on the farm with her invalid sister. They were poverty stricken until an elderly Yankee neighbor named Milton Hannah offered to build a house near his own so that he and his mother could care for Laura and her sister. She agreed and a two-story brick house was built on a nearby brook and named Brookside.
After the death of her sister, Laura and Milton were married and resided at Brookside. Upon the death of her husband Laura was left a wealthy woman. She devoted her wealth to helping the poor and destitute. Much of the Brookside property was given to the Presbyterian and Methodist churches.
At the age of 79 Laura fell whi
le feeding her chickens and suffered a broken ankle. The break did not heal properly and she was left partially crippled for the rest of her life. Laura spent the next eight years in solitude and died at the age of 87.
Nancy Hart—Confederate Scout and Spy
Nancy Hart was a Scottish-Irish American girl from the mountains of western Virginia where life was simple and uncomplicated. She was not educated but was knowledgeable about the people of her area and the surrounding mountainous terrain. She knew about the war and her loyalties were to the Confederacy.
Women in the Civil War Page 18
