Introduction to War: The Civilians of Culpeper County, Virginia

Introduction to War: The Civilians of culpeper county, virginia Daniel E. Sutherland Consider the numbers: 3.5 million versus 28 million. Consider that historians most often write about the 3.5 million Union and Confederate soldiers who participated in the Civil War, while the 28 million civilians of the North and South remain the forgotten majority. We still do not know much about these people, and the framework of community life within which most of them witnessed the war. In the case of Southern civilians (9 million of the 28 million), a few writers have described their plight in towns under seige or in areas occupied by Union troops, but such studies tend to dwell more on military affairs than on the populace. And while some scholars are beginning to analyze the effects of war on individual counties, the most representative form of Southern community, even these studies tend to dwell on long-range social and economic changes. Little time is spent describing the initial exposure of a community to war, the response of its farmers and merchants as rival armies jockeyed for control of farms and towns, the shock of the first battle.1 Yet some appreciation of this first response to the cross-currents of war 1 Among the most balanced studies of Southern communities during the war are: Stephen V. Ash, Middle Tennessee Society Transformed 1860-1870: War and Peace in the Upper South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1988); Gerald M. Capers, Occupied City: New Orleans under the Federals, ¡862-1865 (Lexington: Univ. of Kentucky Press, 1965); James T. Currie, Enclave: Vicksburg and Her Plantations, 1863-70 (Jackson: Univ. of Mississippi Press, 1980); Wayne K. Durrill, War of Another Kind: A Southern Community in the Great Rebellion (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1990); Peter Maslowski, Treason Must Be Made Odious: Military Occupation and Wartime Reconstruction in Nashville, Tennessee, 1862-65 (Millwood, N.Y.: KTO Press, 1978); Emory M. Thomas, The Confederate State of Richmond: A Biography of the Capital (Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 1971); and Peter F. Walker, Vicksburg: A People at War, 1860-1865 (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1960). Another excellent work, but with a broader concept of community, is Michael Fellman, Inside War: The Guerrilla Conflict in Missouri during the American Civil War (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1989). For a more detailed discussion of new directions in the study of Civil War communities, see Daniel E. Sutherland, "Getting the 'Real War' into the Books," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 98 (Apr. 1990). Civil War History, Vol. XXXVII, No. 2, c 1991 by the Kent State University Press CIVILIANS OF CULPEPER COUNTY121 would seem essential for understanding the Southern homefront. As an example of the sort of inquiry being suggested, consider how the residents of one Virginia county, Culpeper County, weathered their shocking introduction to war. The people of Culpeper had no reason to think the summer of 1862 would differ very much from that of the previous year. The summer of 1861 had been good to them, even invigorating. When Virginia seceded, most of Culpeper's free citizens supported the Confederacy. Young men rushed to join one of six county-sponsored infantry and cavalry companies . Women sewed flags and uniforms and raised money for families who might be financially strapped when their men set out to repel the Yankees. Merchants had difficulty stocking items like powder, ball, knives, and boots, as patriotic citizens prepared for war. Excitement intensified when Colonel Philip St. George Cocke arrived to recruit troops in Culpeper and surrounding counties, and to establish a training camp, Camp Henry, on the outskirts of Culpeper Courthouse, the county seat. The camp gave everyone a sense of security. Local merchants and farmers prospered by filling the camp's demands for food, firewood, and equipment. Culpeper seemed destined to help lead a glorious crusade against northern aggression. People spoke of it as a "good war," a just war, and a war that would doubtless be brief.2 Culpeper seemed safe, too. The county had experienced the war vicariously when it received hundreds of wounded and dying men from the battlefield of First Manassas, just twenty-five miles to...