This unidentified Confederate wo war. According to a note written was held in Martinsburg. Library
sisters in Savannah, Tenn., made the news a month after the battle at nearby Shiloh. The Irwin girls professed strong pro-Union sympathies and were believed. Their home became “a gener-
al rendezvous for all the young gallants in the service.” One of ficer was led “to an indiscreet,
not to say criminal, revelation of all he knew about the plans o the campaign and the strength of the army. He is reported as a va man, and flattery rendered him loquacious, until the whole stor was known to the sisters.” I am reminded of a line from old James Taylor song: “Snakes in the ocean, fish in the sea, I a red-headed woman make a fool out of me.” The fool in this cas was the brother of Governor Yate of Illinois. The information he disclosed was relayed to General Beauregard “before a second day
That’s one version, given in May 31 Chicago Times. Version
two ran in the Chicago Daily Tribune a week later. Regarding
the charming sisters, a correspondent wrote, “That they are rebels, every one knows who ever
held as a prisoner of back of the photo, she gress.
entered their household….. The only truth contained in the article, is that the house was the re sort for our officers; to a certa extent this was true.” Why were the officers in the
Irwin house at all? According to this correspondent “It was a curiosity, to most, to find anythin
like civilization on the Tennesse River.” Ouch. It was all lies and politics. author of the article either neve was in Savannah or wrote what he knew to be false, for the purpose of injuring one who is dearer to the Illinois soldiers than any other – Gov. Yates.” Let’s not try to reconcile the
conflicts and instead move on to a story about two other women, cousins this time, Mary and Mollie Bell, aka Tom Parker and Bob Morgan. This tale, like the previous one, has two versions. The October 1864 Richmond Dispatch gives one account. Mary and Mollie had lived in southwest Virginia with an uncle until the fall of 1862; YES, whe he “left them and went over to t Yankees.” Wanting to right this wrong, the sisters “attired them selves in male apparel and were admitted into a cavalry company….” Their company was captured, but all were quickly free when a Confederate force overtook and scattered their captors The cousins then left the cavalry for the infantry. They fought bravely with the Thirty-sixth Virginia, shielded from discovery by their company commander who was in on their secret. Afte their protector was captured at Cedar Creek they were found out and sent to Richmond by General Early. “Bob” and “Tom,” we are told, “were acknowledged by all the soldiers with whom they were associated to be valiant so diers, having never been known to straggle or shirk duty.” Moll in fact, had “killed three Yanke while on picket, and on her retu
to the brigade was promoted for gallantry to corporalcy.” The Daily Examiner told a different story. The captain who
escorted Mary and Mollie to Richmond said that they were “common camp followers, and that they have been the means of demoralizing several hundred men in his command. They adopted the disguise of soldiers t better to follow the army and hi their iniquity. Beyond a doubt
they had been with the army some time, and we have reason to believe that more of the same so
are left in the ranks, marked by Confederate uniform.” The Examiner’s version concluded with this judgment: “The country had here an insight into one of the probable causes of th utter worthlessness and inefficiency of some of the commands in the valley.” So, on Oct. 31, 1864, the
Dispatch told a positive story about two patriotic and brave women. The Examiner’s subscribers that day read something less uplifting. Odder than the conflicting accounts is this: th same correspondent submitted both versions to the rival newsp pers. I don’t know what to make of that. A May 1864 issue of the Nashville Dispatch contained an interesting story about women in the Federal army, and one that hints at a corruptive influ ence greater than the scandal condemned by the Richmond Examiner. “The official records at Washington state that upwards of 150 female recruits have been discovered since the commencement of the war. It is supposed that nearly all of these were in collusion with men who were examined and accepted, after which the fair ones managed to substitute themselves and be mustered into service. Over seventy of these martial ladies, when their sex was discovered, were acting as officers’ servants. In one re iment there were seventeen of them in this capacity.” Nothing was said about the duties of the servants.
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Next month we will look at th careers of some of the most famous female participants in the Civil War.
*Merriam-Webster’s onl edition states the word “sutler was first used in English in 18 It was taken from the Dutch soe teler, which was derived from a Low German word meaning “sloppy worker.” The French means the same thing, but it do sound better.
Source: Betts, Vicki, “Women Soldiers, Spies, and Vivandiere Articles from Civil Wa Newspapers” (2016). Special Topics. Paper 28. http://hdl. handle.net/10950/780.
Gould Hagler is a retired lobby ist living in Dunwoody, Ga. He a past president of the Atlanta Civil War Round Table and the author of Georgia’s Confederate Monuments: In Honor of a Fallen Nation, published by Mercer University Press in 2014. Hagle speaks frequently on this topic and others related to different aspects of the Civil War and ha been a regular contributor to C since 2016. He can be reached a