War Widows and Orphans

In President Abraham Lincoln's oft-quoted second inaugural address in 1865, he stated:

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

The most obvious widows and orphans during the war were those who lost husbands and fathers in battle. Yet there were also women who were widowed before the war whose sons went off to fight and left them in hard straits with themselves and other siblings to support. Many widows, black and white, wrote letters seeking jobs, pensions, other types of financial aid, or the exemption of their sons from military duty so that they could come home to support their families. Soldiers themselves appealed to the government for aid for widowed parents or for release from service to care for them. African American women who had been enslaved and therefore could not legally marry during their period of enslavement had the additional problem of proving that the soldier from whom they expected support or because of whose military service they requested a pension was indeed their husband. Women often had to fight to be given a chance to work because the custom of the day expected that some male in the extended family would become the primary supporter of widows and their children.

Letters to Lincoln

The Abraham Lincoln papers in the Library of Congress provide a rich trove of information about Northern widows and orphans during the Civil War. Some letters like this one dated, requested honor for fallen heroes rather than material support. Isaac Newton Arnold (1815-1884), Illinois Congressman and Lincoln friend and biographer, wrote to Lincoln:

…earnestly requesting that a commission of Brigr. General might be forwarded to the widow of my friend, & law student Col. James A. Mulligan…. [T]he Board of Trade voted his widow $1000. & citizens have subscribed much more. His last words 'Lay me down & save the flag,' expressed his unselfish devotion to the country. If you will cause such a commission to be sent, I shall deem it one of the most grateful acts of my life to present it to his widow. (August 4, 1864)

In another letter thanking Lincoln for benefits received, Anna E. Jones, widow of John Richter Jones, wrote from Eaglesmeare, Pennsylvania, that it was "with heartfelt gratitude that I venture to address you in order to thank you for your kindness to the widow and orphan in nominating my son Horatio M. Jones as a Cadet at West Point. May you be rewarded for your kindness by his emulating his late father, Col J. Richter Jones, in his love and devotion to his country" (September 24, 1863).

Many letters to Lincoln requested passes for widows to travel between the Union and the Confederate states. Samuel P. Lee, an officer in the Union Navy, North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, wrote to Lincoln from the flagship, U.S.S. Minnesota "off Newport News," Virginia, requesting safe conduct for:

…the widow of the late Secretary [of State Abel P.] Upshur, who, with her grand-child (a mere boy), and her sister, desires to return to her home in Washington City. Formerly I was on terms of friendship with this then influential, now helpless, family, and I ask your Excellency, as an act of humanity, to approve and return to me the enclosed, which authorizes Major General Butler to issue the necessary passports, on the usual conditions, to these ladies and this child. (February 27, 1864)

Lincoln also issued a pass on one occasion to permit his wife's stepsister to travel across Union-held territory. "It is my wish that Mrs. Emily T. Helm, (widow of the late Gen. B. H. Helm, who fell in the Confederate service,) now returning to Kentucky, may have protection of person and property, except as to slaves, of which I say nothing" (December 14, 1863). Sadly, Mary Todd Lincoln's relationships to several Confederate soldiers through her extended family led to considerable criticism of the First Lady.

A very different kind of petition was addressed to Lincoln from Mary Mann, the widow of the educational reformer Horace Mann (1796-1859), then living in Concord, Massachusetts. She sent a "Petition of the children of the United States; (under 18 years) that the President will free all slave children." Mann wrote, "These children understand the social relations, father, mother, brother and sister; and the thought of separation is distressing, and when they are instructed to know that little slave children are constantly liable to be sold away—fathers and mothers also, their sensibilities are wrought up to the highest indignation" (April 1864). Interestingly, Lincoln drafted an answer to Mann, stating:

Madam, The petition of persons under eighteen, praying that I would free all slave children, and the heading of which petition it appears you wrote, was handed me a few days since by Senator Sumner. Please tell these little people I am very glad their young hearts are so full of just and generous sympathy, and that, while I have not the power to grant all they ask, I trust they will remember that God has, and that, as it seems, He wills to do it. Yours truly, A. Lincoln. (April 5, 1864)

J. Andrews Harris of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, wrote to Lincoln on behalf of women working to supply the Union Army as well as to support their families:

I venture to appeal to you directly, without the intervention of red tape, on behalf of about thirty thousand suffering people in the city of Philadelphia, who can, by a word from you… be relieved of at least one half of their misery. They are women who sew, (on army work), and their children. These women are now forced, instead of getting their work and their pay direct from the arsenal, to be at the mercy of contractors who give them sometimes not one half of the government rates… If an order were given… that they be allowed to get their work & their pay directly from the arsenal, instead of its being given to contractors in the first place, the difficulty they labour under would be done away. These women are, very many of them, the wives or widows of American Soldiers; & all they need is the show of fair play at the hands of the government for which their husbands are fighting or have died… The hand which by a stroke of the pen gave freedom to an oppressed race can… secure, at the least, fair dealing with those who are dear to men who left them at home, unprotected, to be able to back up your Emancipation proclamation at the risk of their lives. The prayers of a poor wife, a helpless widow, & destitute children, will surely call down a blessing from Heaven upon you if you will but interpose in their behalf. (January 23, 1865)

Some of the Lincoln letters request exemptions from military service. A telegram from John Williams of Springfield, Illinois, to Lincoln requested that "Chas A Trumbo Co K one hundred fourteenth (114) Ills only stay of his widowed mother wishes to put an acceptable substitute in his place Can you grant permission [?]" (January 4, 1865). Another letter not only requested that Lincoln relieve her son from service but also explained why the writer could not return his signing bonus. Ann Bowden from Washington, DC, wrote,

Our Most worthey presedent please Excuase Me for takeing this Liberty But I Cannot Express my Grate gratitude for your kindness in granting Me the order for My Son john H Bowden's of Chicago discharge what Goverment Bounty he has receved I have that Unbroken to refuned But the 1 hundred Dollers County Bounty I have Not Got It as I had to Use it Last winter to Maintain My Sick Boy and a dependant Sister I have Bin a widow Eleven years My Oldest Son a Loosing his health on Cheat Mountain Makes it Vary Bad for Us our kind president If you Can releave Me So that I Can take My Boy home with me I feel that God will reward you and I No he will Bless all your Undertakings please Answare[.]. (June 12, 1864)

Another widow asked Lincoln's help with another kind of arrangement. Mary Buckley of Washington, DC, wrote to explain that she was:

…the widow of Dennis Buckley who was employed for several years as a laborer in the Arsenal in this city, and whose excellent character is vouched for by officers of the Army, in letters which I have in my possession I am poor and the mother of six children, the oldest of whom is not more than 12.years of age. I ask for employment for my brother Michael Donovan, who has been out of work for two months and who kindly helps to support me. He is well known, as an industrious, honest man, who has been employed at the Arsenal, and in various Departments of the Government and has who is very poor. (October 10, 1861)

Lincoln directed that some military officers find work for Donovan.

Lucretia S. Hickman of Washington, DC, asked Lincoln for employment for herself:

Sir—Being the orphan daughter of an officer of The U. S—and reft of all means of support—by your Liberation proclamation—which I must say—I never, the-less, most cordially approve—as the World of enlightened men—must now—and in all coming time—Yet the inconvenience to me is—that every Nephew—and male relative I have is now in the front—battling for the Unity and very National existence of their country—And I—and their widowed mother utterly destitute of resources. Yet I am able and willing to write & maintain us honorably. Will you not—guided by your native instincts of high justice and benevolence give me an order on some of your able functionaries [to help find suitable employment] (May 23, 1864)?

A letter from Lincoln to Secretary of War Edwin M.Stanton requests the commutation of a soldier's punishment. Lincoln wrote,

A poor widow, by the name of Baird, has a son in the Army, that for some offence has been sentenced to serve a long time without pay, or at most, with very little pay—I do not like this punishment of withholding pay—it falls so very hard upon poor families—After he has been serving in this way for several months, at the tearful appeal of the poor mother, I made a direction that he be allowed to enlist for a new term, on the same conditions as others—She now comes, and says she can not get it acted upon. Please do it. (March 1, 1864)

African American War Widows

One of the obvious sources for information about Civil War widows is the Veterans Administration records in the National Archives. White women could usually prove their marital status by providing marriage certificates issued by the church or the state. Even family Bibles were sometimes accepted as proof of marital unions. Formerly enslaved women, on the other hand, did not usually possess such documents. African American war widows had to make their claims in a more roundabout fashion. At first the United States recognized only legal marriages and ignored slave marriages. Yet Congress was aware that slave couples had lived together and raised families; thus the members began to write guidelines to allow former slave wives to receive pensions for their husbands' service in the United States Colored Troops. In 1864 Congress amended the pension bill by allowing,

… that the widows and children of colored soldiers… shall be entitled to receive the pensions now provided by law, without other proof of marriage than that the parties had habitually recognized each other as man and wife, and lived together as such for a definite period, not less than two years, to be shown by the affidavits of credible witnesses (U. S. War Department 1861, p. 66).

This act was amended on June 6, 1866; the new act required no "other evidence of marriage than proof, satisfactory to the Commissioner of Pensions, that the parties have habitually recognized each other as man and wife, and lived together as such" (Harmon 1867, p. 276). Legislation passed on June 15, 1873, however, stated that the widow was required to supply evidence that she and her husband "were joined in marriage by some ceremony deemed by them obligator" (p. 267).

One example of a pension file is that of Lucy Brown. While enslaved to one of the wealthiest slave owners in Mississippi, Lucy Brown married a fellow slave, Thomas Brown, and bore him several children. According to Henry Young, who had resided on the same plantation as the Browns, "Thomas and Lucy lived together as husband and wife continually after they were married up to the time that he enlisted" (Frankel 1999, p. 100-101). During the war, while Lucy's husband served in the Union Army, Lucy lived in a federal camp established for former slaves. Reunited in Vicksburg, Lucy and Thomas were legally married with a Union Army chaplain officiating. According to Lucy Brown, "We were married again by the chaplain of the regiment and he gave me a certificate" (Frankel 1999, p. 101). After her husband died during the war, Lucy, accompanied by her only surviving child, Clara, found work as a field hand and a domestic servant after the war.

During and after the Civil War thousands of formerly enslaved family members went in search of one another. Reunions, however, sometimes indicated that African Americans had taken more than one spouse. This unintentional bigamy occurred because enslaved people had often had no say in marriages arranged by their owners. A typical instance is reflected in a letter from Willie Ann Grey of Salvisa, Kentucky, on April 7, 1866, to her "Dear Husband":

I received your letter the 5 of this month and was very glad to hear from you. You wish me to come to Virginia. I had much rather you would come after me but if you cannot make it conveniently you will have to make some arrangement for me and my family. I have 3 little fatherless girls. My husband went off under Burbridge's command and was killed at Richmond Virginia. If you can pay my passage I will come the first of May… For if you love me you will love my children and you will have to promise me that you will provide for them as well as if they were your own… (Sterling 1984, pp. 315–316).

It seems that the couple had had one child together, Maria; Grey knew that he wanted that child but wanted more assurance that her husband truly wanted her and the whole family.

Another example is a letter from a nineteen-year-old African American soldier, Richard Henry Tebout on September 26, 1865, in which he requests a thirty-day furlough to see his mother in New York. He said, "I want to go home to stay for my mothr is sick." He explains that he has not seen his fifty-three-year-old mother for two years. "My mother lost all her children this fall whill I was in the serveice U. S…. My father is dead. My mother farther is deaed my mother is a widow and so here left alone for ever" (Berlin 1997, pp. 206–208). Tebout, who was in the hospital suffering from wounds he had received at Petersburg when he penned this letter, was subsequently mustered out.

War Orphans

The war left many children orphaned and left some who were already orphaned in worse condition that they had been in before the conflict affected the area where they lived. Extended family members often took in orphans, but there were still many children who ended up in group homes. The military, the Freedmen's Bureau, concerned groups of soldiers, and a variety of church and civic organizations banded together to try to help these destitute children. For example, Mrs. Wade H. Burden of Springfield, Missouri, wrote to Lincoln to ask for help:

I appeal to you in behalf of the destitute Orphans of this town and vicinity many of them children of Soldiers deprived of their Fathers by this 'Cruel War' others refugees who have fled to us for protection leaving all their worldly goods behind them many of them are living in tents and others are without shelter living as best they can The ladies of Springfield have organized a society for the purpose of providing for these homeless little ones they propose to purchase a farm with as good buildings as can be had but in order to do this we must have money and there is very little of that in the Treasury not more than $700. We wish to get a shelter for these children before winter and are compelled to solicit subscriptions from abroad Our Citizens will do all they can but they have been heavily taxed during the war and are unable to raise the whole amount—We need at least $4000. Our farm will cost us $5000. Will you not assist us? (August 15, 1864)

D. G. Klein, a minister of the German Reformed Church, also petitioned Lincoln to request an exemption from the draft because he had,

…been engaged in the work of founding an Orphans' Home, for the sheltering, clothing, feeding and educating of poor orphan children, especially such as have become orphans through the present, wicked rebellion against our government and its constitutional administrators. Being subject to the draft, he finds himself greatly embarrassed, on account of the uncertainty of being able to go on with the work, and therefore, he would respectfully, but earnestly, pray his Excellency, the President, and the Honorable Secretary of War, to grant him the favor of a special exemption from the impending draft, and from any future draft, should it be come necessary to make any. (October 10, 1864)

In 1864, the First Annual Report of the National Association for the Relief of Destitute Colored Women and Children in Washington, DC, stated that the organization originally attempted to raise funds for sixty-two children and two aged women. "The want of house room has hitherto prevented our admitting many of the aged. Of the children received twelve were infants. But few of the entire number were in a healthful condition when admitted. Several…were in a nearly dying state from consumption, scurvy, and chronic diarrhea" (p. 8). The administrators explained that they were trying to leave unhealthy children in the hospital but the surgeons had induced them "to receive some whom we could hardly hope to save…"(p. 8). Those who did survive—thirty-seven—were regularly schooled

The Rev. Horace James, superintendent of the North Carolina Department of Negro Affairs, prepared the Annual Report of the Superintendent of Negro Affairs in North Carolina, 1864. In it he mentions both widows and orphans. For example, in his description of the state of affairs for blacks in the town of New Berne, North Carolina, he reported that 10,872 blacks resided in the vicinity of the town and of this number, 2,798 lived in a freedmen's village near the town "Thirteen hundred and fifty-one members of colored soldiers families are now fed in New Berne, 660 being adults, and 691 children. In addition to the wives and children of soldiers, I am now supplying food to 2,149 persons in New Berne who are very poor, or aged, infirm, widows or orphans, or for other reasons dependent on the charity of the government. This class of persons is therefore twenty-three per cent." (pp. 6–7).

African American Orphans and the New York Draft Riots

Probably the most discussed event concerning Civil War orphans did not relate to the war-torn South but to the Colored Orphan Asylum in New York City. White laborers who were angry about being drafted into the Union Army rioted for several days in mid-July 1863. They perceived the Union's role in the war as fighting for the abolition of slavery—the Emancipation Proclamation was in force as of January 1, 1863—and equal rights for African Americans. Thus they vented their anger against any person of color they could find.

Harper's Weekly, a popular magazine of the period, described the incident this way:

The Orphan Asylum for Colored Children was visited by the mob about four o'clock [on July 13, 1863]. This Institution is situated on Fifth Avenue, and the building, with the grounds and gardens adjoining, extended from Forty-third to Forty-fourth Street. Hundreds, and perhaps thousands of the rioters…entered the premises, and in the most excited and violent manner they ransacked and plundered the building from cellar to garret. The building was located in the most pleasant and healthy portion of the city. It was purely a charitable institution….The building was a large four-story one, with two wings of three stories each…. After the entire building had been ransacked, and every article deemed worth carrying away had been taken—and this included even the little garments for the orphans, which were contributed by the benevolent ladies of this city—the premises were fired on the first floor. (August 1, 1863

David Barnes's report of the event provides more information:

While Sergeant Petty was in charge of the station on the evening of Monday, July 13, Superintendent Davis, of the Colored Orphan Asylum, led into the station two hundred and sixteen of the children, none over twelve years of age, who had escaped from their home by the rear as the das-tardly and infamous mob forced an entrance in front and fired the building. The little ones would undoubtedly been assailed had they not been hurriedly guided away. (Barnes 1863, p. 70)

The number of people involved in the attack on the asylum and the composition of the crowd is described in "An Eyewitness Account of the New York Draft Riots," written by a scholar, John Torrey, who was living with several of his daughters at Columbia College when the attack took place. He discussed the rioters saying that the "whole road way & sidewalks filled with rough fellows ( &some equally rough women) who were tearing up rails, cutting down telegraph poles, & setting fire to buildings." Torrey described the attack on the Orphan Asylum this way:

Towards evening the mob, furious as demons, went yelling over to the Colored-Orphan Asylum in 5th Avenue…& rolling a barrel of kerosene in it, the whole structure was soon in a blaze, & smoking ruin…Before this fire was extinguished, or rather burned out, for the wicked wretches who caused it would not permit the engines to be used, the northern sky was brilliantly illuminated, probably by the burning of the Aged Colored-woman's Home in 65th St. (Dupree & Fishel 1960, p. 476).

The crowds yelled their support of the Democrats and Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, and threatened to destroy the homes of any known Republicans and abolitionists.

Some whites also plotted against African American orphans in the South. They did not want to destroy them; however, rather they wanted to apprentice them legally so that they could retain their labor for many years. In a statement dated November 11, 1867, written for Adam Woods and signed with his "X," Woods tells of his efforts to get custody of his brother's children, three boys. He says that they were in the possession of their former owner, Franklin Ditto, in Mead County, Kentucky. The children's father died while serving in the Union Army and their mother had predeceased him. Woods explains that after he received word of his brother's death, "he immediately made arrangements" to come from Kansas, where he had settled, to see about the children. "He called to see Mr. Ditto and asked Mr. Ditto for the children and was answered that he could not get them unless he had a legal right to them. He says Mr. Ditto knows him well and knows that he is the brother of Pleasant." Woods names his brothers and sisters living in the area who could vouch for his identity. Stating that he and his wife are both industrious but childless, "and that he is well able to raise and educate" his brother's children, he "wanted to get possession of them and take them home to Kansas" (Berlin 1997, pp. 206–208). There were many such cases that came before Freedmen's Bureau officials throughout the South.

Communities in both North and South banded together to try to meet the needs of widows and orphans by providing a variety of such support networks as homes for children, help for widows applying for pensions, or employment for those who needed paid work. African Americans in the South were diligent in their efforts to remove children of color from the clutches of former masters. Churches and religious groups were also tireless in their efforts to help those who were in need.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barnes, David. The Draft Riots in New York, July 1863: The Metropolitan Police: Their Service During Riot Week. New York: Baker & Godwin, Printers and Publishers, 1863.

Berlin, Ira, and Leslie S. Rowland, eds. Families and Freedom: A Documentary History of African American Families in the Civil War Era. New York: The New Press, 1997.

"Colored Orphan Asylum." Harper's Weekly, August 1, 1863.

Davis, Rodney O., Matthew Norman, Joel Ward, et al., eds. Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress. Available from http://memory.loc.gov/.

Dupree, A. Hunter, and Leslie H. Fishel, Jr. "An Eyewitness Account of the New York Draft Riots." Mississippi Valley Historical Review 47, no. 3 (1960): 472–479.

Frankel, Noralee. Freedom's Women: Black Women and Families in Civil War Era Mississippi. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999.

Frankel, Noralee. "From Slave Women to Free Women: The National Archives and Black Women's History in the Civil War Era." Prologue 29, no. 2 (1997).Available from http://www.archives.gov/.

Harmon, Henry C. A Manual of the Pension Laws of the United States of America. Washington, DC: W. H.and O. H. Morrison, 1867.

James, Horace. North Carolina Department of Negro Affairs, Annual Report of the Superintendent of Negro Affairs in North Carolina, 1864. Boston: W.F. Brown & Co. Printers, 1865.

Sterling, Dorothy. We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century. New York: W.W. Norton, 1984.

U. S. War Department. Annual Reports of the War Department. Section 14. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1861.