Civil War Resources at Wilson Special Collections Library: Women & the Homefront

Bills for shoes, clothing, and other supplies sold by Weed, Wilters, and Co., a New Orleans merchant firm, to Hermitage Plantation in St. Charles Parish, La., which was being operated by Capt. Horace B. Fitch, a U.S. army officer, during the Civil War occupation of the area. The plantation belonged to Pierre Adolphe Rost (1797-1868), French immigrant, Louisiana judge, and Confederate diplomat.

The collection is the personal diary of Mary Jeffreys Bethell of Rockingham County, N.C. The first part of the book contains short reminiscences of her immediate family. After her marriage in 1840, the diary contains entries relating to her home, neighborhood, the Methodist Church, constant religious activities including camp-meetings, her children, several of whom died young, and the Torian children, whom she referred to as nieces and nephews, and who lived in the Bethell household for years. There is frequent mention of journeys with her husband to Louisiana, Tennessee, and Arkansas, with the possible intention of moving the family, and her negative reaction to the idea. During the Civil War, there is mention of her sons Willie and George entering the Confederate Army, and of news and visits from them. George, in the 55th Regiment, North Carolina Troops, was captured and imprisoned at Johnsons Island. Mary's husband entered the army in 1864 and she wrote of the difficulties at home after he left, including the departure of slaves. There are also reports of rumors and news of the fighting. After the war there are references to social conditions, difficulties with servants, etc.

Fanny Yates Cohen (1840-1938) was residing in Savannah, Georgia when the forced of Union General William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891) occupied the city on December 21, 1864 during Sherman's March to the Sea. During the occupation she kept a journal, in which she described the impact on her family.

The collection includes business and personal correspondence, financial and legal papers, and other items of the Reynolds family and relations, chiefly concerning H. L. Reynolds's companies: Reynolds, Witherspoon, & Co., a Mobile merchandizing firm, and its successor, H. L. Reynolds & Co., cotton factors and merchants in Mobile and New York. There are also many letters relating to family matters, especially since Reynolds was often in partnership with family members. During the Civil War, there are documents relating to Reynolds's arrest and detention by federal agents. Letters, 1866-1868, chiefly concern getting bales of cotton from Alabama and Mississippi planters to market in spite of federal agents' authorization to seize cotton as reparation payments. Also included are four diaries, written by unidentified female family members in Pennsylvania and Connecticut, recording daily life and family events, 1802-1840, with considerable gaps; papers relating to land warrants of the Mobile firm of Harding and Redditt, 1858-1884; documents about Greene family history; an incomplete biographical sketch of Hezekiah Smith (1737-1805), Baptist evangelist of Haverhill, Mass.; and a sketch book of Reynolds's son, Harry, containing North Carolina scenes.

Scattered family letters from Mobile and Richmond with references to the war and to family members serving in the Confederate Army. All three of Rosina's sons as well as William Mordecai of Mobile saw action in Virginia. Rebecca Myers Mordecai died in 1863; in 1864 the family home in Richmond was broken up. Emma stayed primarily with Rosina at Rosewood and her letters describe the ravages of the armies, Confederate and Union, on the property of local farmers.