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.
