Documenting Women’s Civil War Experiences in the Ohio Valley at The Filson

70 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY Collection Essay Documenting Women’s Civil War Experiences in the Ohio Valley at The Filson T he last issue of Ohio Valley History (summer 2013) offered a survey of a few of The Filson collections that highlight the lives of women and reveal their influence in the history of the region. This issue turns to collections that document women in the narrower scope of the Civil War. That bloody conflict continues to fascinate Americans, and the war dramatically affected the lives of women, who offered their insights and documented their experiences in the war for themselves and others. Women suffered through tragedies and exulted in triumphs along with men, often leaving a record from which future generations can learn about this momentous historical era. Some of these records, such as the Cora Owens Hume diaries, are quite personal and provide unusual insight into the thoughts of a woman loyal to the Confederacy. Unmarried during the war, Owens discussed school, social events, and major gossip or rumors about wartime events and various governmental decisions. Describing life in Louisville during the war, Owens wrote about passing a long line of soldiers: “We met three companies of cavalry and 30 army wagons on our way to school, and three regiments passed after we got there, and all of their wagons.” Owens feared these Union soldiers, adding, Cora Owens Hume (b. 1848). THE FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY ERIC WILLEY FALL 2013 71 Woman (Mary Belle Tucker) and her servant, likely a slave. THE FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY DOCUMENTING WOMEN’S CIVIL WAR EXPERIENCES IN THE OHIO VALLEY AT THE FILSON 72 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY “I was so afraid that they would stop here [at home] and give them trouble.” Owens’s anxiety about the presence of Union soldiers was so great she would not ride out alone for fear of meeting up with a soldier. In contrast, Owens wrote in glowing terms of her joy in Confederate victories throughout the war, and refused to accept as true newspaper reports of southern defeats. In the spring of 1863 she believed the Confederacy would take Louisville, writing , “Glorious, glorious, glorious, if we can whip the Yankees right good this time, I believe that our men will be here by the middle of June.” She became excited at the news that John Hunt Morgan had escaped from an Ohio jail, exclaiming , “Hurrah Hurrah Hurrah! I feel like I want to be somewhere that I can scream as loud as I can. I think I will get into the cellar and then no Yankee can hear me. John Morgan and 6 of his men have escaped from prison. It would seem that my prayers have been answered!” Although she later attended school in Maryland and eventually traveled to Canada, Owens remained faithful to the Confederate cause.1 Owens’s journal also offers a rare glimpse into the lives of the enslaved African American women in her household, and she noted several significant changes in her relationship with them as the war progressed. In much of her diary, Owens commented on the family’s slaves only when they were sick because it resulted in more work for her. Near the end of the war, two slaves, Ann and Fannie Owens, ran away, and the two oldest and most trusted slaves, Lettie and Minor Hawkins, attended Unionist meetings and began to talk of “emancipation” and “rights.” Cora Owens wrote in 1865 that “Many of the slaves think that they are going to heaven on the 4th of July, as that is the day the Lincolnites say they must demand wages for future labor.” Lettie and Minor Hawkins left the Owens’s service after Cora’s mother ordered them out. Cora’s journal indicates that her mother could not cope with the fact that former slaves had become her legal equals, and she would not pay them wages.2 While she did not share Owens’s enthusiasm for military matters, Amelia Bourne also kept a diary while attending Woodford Female Academy in Versailles, Kentucky, from 1862 to 1867. Bourne wrote about school matters, events, her thoughts, illnesses , the Civil War, and the weather. Later entries include recipes, addresses of...