Families Separated By War

A Woman's War Record, by Septima Collis, 1889

“He [C.S.A. General Richard Ewell] could not understand how a Southern woman could espouse the Northern cause simply because she had married a Northerner . . . I told him that I had only followed the example of many other Southrons – I had ‘gone with my State,’ mine being the state of matrimony.”

Septima Maria Collis. A Woman’s War Record. New York and London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1889.

Virginia Clay Clopton, undated

Image of Virginia Clay Clopton, undated. From the C.C. Clay Papers, 1811-1925.

Diary entry of Virginia Clay

"No letters, no telegrams! What am I to do? Fear of the enemy still entertained, flats all sunk – bridges burned! God help us and send me my husband I pray!” Diary of Virginia Clay, 1859-1866.

From the C.C. Clay Papers, 1811-1925.

Letter from E.T. McCutchan to her wounded son, 1864

"My Dearest Son, You know mother wants to be with her poor wounded soldier boy, I know I should have made at least an attempt to get to you if you had not begged me not. I feel so idle, so useless here at home, knowing how useful I could be to you and how you would love to have dear Mother to nurse you. . . ."

Letter from E.T. McCutchan to her wounded son, 22 May 1864. From the James Wright Tracy Papers, 1863-1894.

Christmas Eve, 1862

"Christmas Eve, 1862" sketch in Harper's Weekly, December 1862.

Letter from Eunice Stone to Lois Davis, 29 April 1861

“Now I am with the North all though I have to keep it to myself, but still I do not think it is right to push coercion for it will be useless. There never will be a union of feeling any more if the North does whip the South.”

Letter from Eunice Stone, in Alabama, to her mother Lois Davis, in New Hampshire. 29 April 1861. Eunice and her sister moved with their husbands to Alabama just prior to the state's secession. Both husbands joined the Confederate army; Eunice's husband, William, died in the war.

From the Lois Wright Richardson Davis Papers, 1851-1915.

Eunice Stone

Picture believed to be of Eunice Stone, 1863.

From the Lois Wright Richardson Davis Papers, 1851-1915.

Letter from Lois Davis to her son, Henry Richardson, 6 June 1861.

“You must give yourself no uneasiness about our familys at the south altho it is a sad affair it will do them no good for us to break down under it. I regret they ever went there if they had foreseen this dreadful war probably, they never would.”

Letter from Lois Davis to her son, Henry Richardson, 6 June 1861. Henry and his brother Luther fought in the Union Army against the husbands of his sisters, Eunice and Ellen, who lived in Alabama.

From the Lois Wright Richardson Davis Papers, 1851-1915. Read more about Eunice Stone and the rest of her family (including her second husband, a black sea captain) in The Sea Captain's Wife, by Martha Hodes, 2007.

The Mother of the Soldier Boy sheet music, 1864.

"To Miss Georgia Tweedy, of Augusta, Ga., The Mother of the Soldier Boy," published in Savannah, Ga., 1864.

When This Cruel War Is Over songsheet

"When This Cruel War Is Over" songsheet, undated