Confederates and Quakers: The Shared Wartime Experience

At the close of the Civil War in early April 1865, fifty-four year old widow Delphina Mendenhall found her town of Jamestown, North Carolina swarming with hungry Northern soldiers. ¹ A member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Delphina had welcomed Confederate deserters, conscientious objectors, and Union soldiers into her home throughout the war, as she did anyone in need. After offering chickens and onions from her meager supply when the army sent out an appeal for food, another call came for fresh meat, as the Northern troops had grown tired of the unfamiliar diet of cornbread and bacon. “I have parted with my hens except one with chickens,” Delphina replied, “but I have a fat pig named Sherman, that you may have.”

“No!” cried one of the Northern soldiers. “Sherman is a better man to us, ² than our own generals[;] we will not trouble his namesake.” Apparently the pig had earned his name because he and other pigs had come through a broken fence and up to her house, where this pig in particular began making trouble. “[T]hat pig is tearing things upside down just like Sherman,” someone commented, and the name stuck. ³

What does this story tell us about the relations between Southern Quakers and passionate Confederates? With the outbreak of the Civil War, Southerners were forced to choose sides; would they participate in rebellion to defend their honor and way of life or would they stay loyal to the Union? Friends in the South, who opposed violence, were also torn. With their country and religion in opposition, which would they choose to obey? Although the Confederacy passed an exemption act in 1862 that allowed Quakers to pay a $500 tax or perform alternative service to stay out of the military, some conscripted Friends felt uncomfortable supporting the military even indirectly, and as a result, suffered greatly in military camps and prisons.

Historians have looked at the experiences of Southern Friends during the Civil War era from different angles, mostly centering on conscientious objection and abolition. Sources beginning with Fernando G. Cartland’s 1895 book Southern Heroes: Or, The Friends in Wartime tell the stories of conscientious objectors, lauding their bravery and conviction, but provide a flat, if heroic image of the subjects and show them within a cultural vacuum. ⁴ Most historians focus on the conflicts between Friends testimonies and Confederate orders, neglecting the fact that Southern Friends were, in fact, Southerners as well as Quakers. Historians who analyze nineteenth century Southern culture and honor rarely mention Quakers at all. ⁵ While it is important to recognize the trials of Southern Friends and not to minimize the conflicts they encountered with Confederate military personnel and other Southerners, there is more to the story. Using primarily Civil War-era letters and diaries, this paper will seek to address—and complicate—these dual identities and the places where Southern Friends and Confederates found common ground.

Despite clear conflicts between Confederates and Southern Friends stemming from radically different worldviews, shared wartime experiences also managed to bring these parties together on a personal level. War muddies moral certainties; Southerners who had glorified the defense of honor through violence discovered that total war was not nearly as glamorous as it had initially seemed, while Quakers who opposed violence throughout the war learned that resistance could not protect them from its destructive power. On the home front, Friends and non-Friends alike felt the impacts of war, both Quaker meetings and the Confederate government compromised when it came to conscription and conscientious objection, and soldiers found sympathy for Friends unwilling to fight. Some Friends even decided to fight, although Friends and non-Friends alike are notably silent when it comes to these instances. Each individual was forced to find a place amid the moral chaos of war, making a vast gray area between the black and white extremes of Quaker and Southern ideals.

In the story about Delphina and Sherman, the Quaker woman showed the Northern soldiers neither hostility nor submissiveness; she personified the Friends values of nonviolence and compassion. But at the same time...