Adeline Bagley Buice: the war's impact on civilians

 

From:  I Am Proud Of My Confederate Ancestors

by Kristin Ballance · Confederate Spirit

Adeline Bagley Buice was one of about 400 women working in the Roswell mills (two for cotton, one for woolens) in 1864. Her husband, Joshua Buice, was away serving in the Confederate Army. Despite the fact most of the more well-to-do residents of Roswell had fled in fear of the Union Army’s impending arrival, these women remained at their jobs.
    You can visit the ruins of those mills even today ... "The Bricks", as they were called, housed the women working in the Roswell mills. They were built in 1840 and consisted of 10 apartment units—housing for the women working in the Roswell mills. (They have since been restored and are a historic site.)
     On July 5, 1864, seeking a way to cross the Chattahoochee River and get access to Atlanta, Brigadier General Kenner Garrard’s cavalry began the Union’s 12-day occupation of Roswell, which was undefended. Garrard reported to Major General William T. Sherman that he had discovered the mills in full operation and proceeded to destroy them because the cloth was being used to make Confederate uniforms. Sherman replied that the destruction of the mills “meets my entire approval.” He then ordered that the mill owners and employees be arrested and charged with treason.  He said, “I repeat my orders that you arrest all people, male and female, connected with those factories, no matter what the clamor, and let them foot it, under guard, to Marietta, whence I will send them by (railroad) cars, to the North.... Let them (the women) take along their children and clothing, providing they have a means of hauling or you can spare them."
    The women, their children, and the few men, most either too young or too old to fight, were sent by wagon to Marietta and imprisoned in the abandoned Georgia Military Institute. Soon after, with several days’ rations, they were loaded into boxcars that proceeded through Chattanooga, Tenn., and after a stopover in Nashville, headed to Louisville, Ky., the final destination for many of the mill workers. Others were sent across the Ohio River to Indiana ...
     First housed and fed in a Louisville refugee hospital, the women later took what menial jobs and living arrangements they could find. Those in Indiana struggled to survive, many settling near the river, where eventually mills provided employment. Penniless, some of them resorted to prostitution. Unless husbands had been transported with the women or had been imprisoned nearby, there was little probability of a return to Roswell. Some of the remaining women began to marry and bear children.
     Adeline, who was heavily pregnant when she and her co-workers were arrested, was among those shipped North. She made her way to Chicago and in August, she gave birth to a daughter that she named Mary Ann. Over the next five years, Adeline and Mary made their way home to Georgia, mostly on foot. (Many) of her fellow mill workers never made it back ...
     Adeline and Mary’s return was quite a shock to her husband, Joshua, who had long since come back from the battlefield. Thinking Adeline was dead, he reportedly remarried. Not sure how that turned out, But In 1867, Adeline had given birth to a son, John Henry--most likely from abuse on her journey home. While John Henry only lived to the age of 15, his sister Mary Ann lived to be 88. (Perhaps) Joshua accepted John Henry as his own and the reunited family went on from there.

The Story of One Black Slave Owner

Andrew Durnford: A Black Sugar Planter in the Antebellum South, by David Whitten, Transaction Publishers, 1995, 133 pp.

What was life like for a black slave owner?
In Andrew Durnford, David O. Whitten has drawn on the correspondence between a free, mulatto master and his lifelong white friend to give us a glimpse into a forgotten corner of the American past.

Andrew Durnford was said to be the child of a free black woman and her wealthy English lover, Thomas Durnford. Thomas gave his son an aristocratic education that included French, mathematics, and medicine. Although the most that illegitimate mulatto children could usually hope for was freedom upon the death of their fathers, Andrew inherited both Thomas Durnford’s name and a portion of his estate. He subscribed to periodicals in both French and English, and valued education enough to send his own son to Lafayette College in Pennsylvania.

John McDonogh had been a close friend and business partner of Durnford’s father, Thomas. When Thomas Durnford died, owing almost $10,000 to McDonogh, McDonogh was granted curatorship over the estate. His association with Durnford’s son was a crucial advantage to the young mulatto. In 1831, McDonogh set up Andrew Durnford as a planter, selling to him — on credit — 14 slaves and 672 acres of land along the Mississippi. McDonogh clearly had an abiding affection for Durnford and appears to have treated him as a social equal. He helped Durnford acquire yet more property, and by 1835, Durnford owned 77 slaves and more than 1600 acres of land.

Durnford was not a successful businessman. He was able to cover the costs of running his plantation for only two out of 26 years. He owned more slaves than he needed and, according to Mr. Whitten, “would have enjoyed greater financial returns had he put his capital out at interest and employed himself at salary.” He lived comfortably, but depended on the kindness of his creditor. When he died he still owed $13,000 to John McDonogh’s survivors.

Mr. Whitten writes that Durnford was a kindly master, but he appears to have had no illusions about his property. On one occasion he wrote of his “rascally Negroes,” saying “I have to threaten them severely to get them to do their dutys . . .” When slaves were incapable of a job, he often hired Dutch or German free hands. When slaves escaped, Durnford sent his overseer to track them down. Of one disobedient slave he wrote, “I ordered five round [lashes] to be given him yesterday . . . He is a wicked fellow.”

Though John McDonogh freed 85 of his blacks and set them up with jobs in Liberia, Durnford thought it was foolish to free slaves, since he thought they could not care for themselves: “There is not one in a hundred that could save money. They have not the moral courage to deprive themselves of luxuries.” During his life he freed only four slaves — a laborer in his 50s and three mulatto children. McDonogh freed all but a few slaves in his will, but Andrew Durnford freed only one at his death — an illegitimate child.

Durnford’s legitimate son was not a kind master to the slaves he inherited. “The race relationship between this mulatto and the slaves may have been more severe than that found between slaves and white owners and overseers,” writes Mr. Whitten. Slavery was, indeed, a vexing question, scarcely illuminated by the clichés with which it is invariably addressed.

Some Important Women of the Civil War: Nurses and the Home Front

 Too large to be presented in one program, this PowerPoint features some of the contributions of Civil War era women. The role of women in caring for the sick and wounded and on the home-front is covered in this program. Women spies and soldiers will be the focus of another one. The PowerPoint program contains additional information in the Notes section of each slide that the PDF version does not contain. The PDF version, however, takes up much smaller memory. A sample of some of the women featured in the program is below. To access the entire program, click on the format you prefer:  PowerPoint    PDF

Flagbearers and Color-guards in the Civil War

A review of the human cost of carrying an American or Confederate flag during our nation's most costly war.  Among the many inspirational stories of our ancestors, read about the war of attrition between the 24th Michigan and the 26th North Carolina at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863. Both regiments suffered the heaviest number of casualties in either army during their encounter. The Union regiment lost 9 Color-bearers and the Confederate regiment lost 14 such men that day. The survivors of the 26th went on to lose another 8 color-bearers in Picket's Charge two days later--a total of 22 men who carried their colors into battle over three days. This doesn't include the loss of several dozen more men who comprised the color guard for the Regiment. To download a PDF version of this program, click HERE.  

A few of the 55 slides for the program are shown below.  We hope that education about the important role our flag has played in the preservation of freedom in our nation and around the world will result in fewer instances of it being burned and destroyed in future 'protests'. This version discusses both important examples of heroism on the part of both Union and Confederate flag-bearers and color guards. A SUVCW PowerPoint that concentrates on Union regiments and soldiers is available HERE. 

1,300 Years of Forgotten Black Genocide of the Arab Islamic Slave Trade

From: 1,300 Years of Forgotten Black Genocide of the Arab Islamic Slave Trade - Geller Report