-
2 Occupied at Home: Women Confront Confederate Forces in North Carolina’s Quaker Belt
- The University of North Carolina Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
chapter two Early in 1864, near the county seat of Carthage, in Moore County, North Carolina, Franny Jordan followed a “squad of soldiers” who had seized her teenaged son with the intention of forcing him into the Confederate Army. Fearful of what lay ahead, she stopped at the home of a neighbor and enlisted the aid of two young women in retrieving her son. As the women approached the Confederate soldiers, the soldiers cursed them for daring to challenge their authority. When one of the women retorted that they intended to do “no such thing,” the soldiers surrounded her. Crying out “god dam her,” one man urged the others to “take her along too.”1 At first, the young woman stood her ground, warning the men not to touch her. But when they drew their bayonets and one pretended to drive his through her, she bolted and ran. As she scrambled over a fence, another soldier grabbed her dress, ripping it before she could escape his grip. “Shoot her,” a man’s voice rang out, prompting another to cock his gun and take aim. In the end, although the same man continued to holler, “Shoot her,” none of the soldiers had the stomach to kill an ordinary white farm girl. They held their fire as the three women ran away.2 Occupied at Home Women Confront Confederate Forces in North Carolina’s Quaker Belt 38 Home Front During the Civil War, such home front skirmishes occurred regularly in North Carolina’s Quaker Belt. Although historians now recognize women as active participants in the war, forced as wives, mothers, or slaves to protect home and family from intruding soldiers and deserters alike, the very nature of women’s wartime struggles makes it difficult to view them outside their biologically and socially constructed roles, as anything other than victims. Because white women such as Franny, emotionally and economically devastated by the loss of husbands and sons, appear in past records mostly as wives and mothers, they are rarely viewed as individuals— that is, citizens— who publicly asserted opinions or influenced the course of wartime policy.3 We should not discount, however, the possibility that Franny acted as both a mother and a citizen when she and her female companions contested the right of the Confederate state to impress her child into military service. A strong sense of cultural solidarity, nurtured by nonconventional religious traditions, characterized the Randolph County area.4 Quaker Belt women developed a public voice in response to the Civil War’s violation of their cultural values and traditions and particularly to Confederate military occupation. Yet, because occupying forces are typically understood to be enemy soldiers who have seized control over a rival government’s lands, it is easy to overlook the Confederacy’s occupation of disloyal regions and its punishment of pro-Union citizens. As a result, Civil War tales about occupation of the South regularly recount harassment of citizens by Yankees and deserters but rarely include women like Franny Jordan who were abused by their new government’s forces. Race and class, as well as culture and religion, influenced many people throughout the South to view the Confederacy as an illegitimate, occupying government. Certainly, few enslaved, free black, or landless poor white Southerners expressed much affection for the Confederacy. Free African Americans, a visible reminder of the possibility that all blacks might soon be free, were more stringently policed, sometimes harassed, by methods resembling those of an occupying force.5 The case of Elizabeth Burnett, of Goldsboro, Wayne County, demonstrated the dangers of open resistance to Confederate authority by women of color. During the war, Burnett’s home was a popular meeting place for blacks. Goldsboro’s mayor, worried that she might be involved in a theft ring, ordered Officer Blount King to investigate. During King’s investigation , a fight broke out between him and Elizabeth Burnett. After the war, the reconstructed court charged King with assault and battery. In October [34.230.84.106] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 09:29 GMT) Occupied at Home 39 1867, however, in what presaged coming race relations, about 120 white citizens protested the indictment of Officer King. Rather, they praised the officer for keeping free blacks in their “proper place” during the war. Citing Burnett’s “rude and insulting” behavior toward the officer and her wellknown “high temper,” these white members of the community argued that a beating was just what Burnett deserved. They accordingly petitioned Governor Jonathan Worth to...