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BARBARA McFADDEN |
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 MARIA ELECTA JEWETT WASHBURN and her husband, COL. JAMES WASHBURN, posing for a portrait taken in Richland Center, Wisconsin, after the Civil War. The photo is used by permission of the Brewer Public Library in Richland Center. |
Perils of visiting a husband during America's Civil War
By BARBARA McFADDEN
of TheColumnists.com
Throughout history,
determined women and their children have braved considerable
danger to visit their men at war. In fact, no less a lady than
Martha Washington visited her general in camp during the Revolutionary
War. So, I wasn’t surprised to learn that my great, great
grandmother, Maria Electa Jewett Washburn, did the very same
thing when she became lonely for her husband-friend-lover, Col.
James Washburn, during one of his long absences fighting the
Civil War.
Maria Electa was in her mid-30s when she decided that she was
going to make arrangements with her friends and neighbors in
Woodsfield, midway down the Eastern side of Ohio, to care for
and keep an eye on her five children, aged 3-14, while she took
a journey across a few states to visit her colonel at his camp
near Winchester, Virginia. A friend and neighbor, a Mrs. Simmons,
was going to travel with her so that she could visit her young
son, who was under Col. Washburn’s command in the 116th
Ohio Volunteer Infantry.
Early on June 12, 1863, the two women boarded the stage with
their stuffed satchels secured on top and merrily waved to Maria
Electa’s youngsters as their adventure began. With cheeks
flushed with excitement and the building heat of the summer day,
they chatted happily about how much time they hoped to spend
with their men.
They arrived in the Union camp on the 14th, had dinner with “our”
men and Maria’s husband “...engaged board for us
at a house near camp.” He was called out that evening
and she didn’t see him again until it had turned dark on
the 16th “...when he rode up to the gate where I was
standing and said, ‘There is going to be a battle and I
must go; goodby and take care of yourself,’ and he was gone.”*
\Suddenly a shell burst nearby and someone shouted that she should
hurry to the cellar. When it turned light, she and Mrs. Simmons
ventured out only to discover the union soldiers were gone and
rebels were headed their way. They hustled back to the house
where they found a number of wounded men. One asked her to destroy
some papers, which she quickly tore into pieces. In another room
was “...a soldier with both arms off above the elbows
and he asked me to give him a drink of water; I had some lemons
and I made him some lemonade and he was very thankful for it.
I sat down beside him and kept the flies off him, they were so
thick around him...he belonged to a Massachusetts regiment and
was loading his cannon when it went off, shattering both his
arms.”
With the best of intentions, but no concept of germs, she followed
the rebels as they carried him roughly to an ambulance and pulled
some weeds to cover the stubs of his arms. (I shuddered when
I read that and wondered where those movie heroines were--the
ones who would rip up their petticoats to use as bandages when
that poor boy needed them?)
They wound up at a fort. After they found no one they knew there,
they walked among the dead to assure themselves that neither
of their men were among them. Suddenly, a rebel officer rode
up and demanded her name and her husband’s regiment. When
he heard her response, he gleefully told her that he was seated
on the colonel’s riding cloth and it did, indeed, read Col.
116th O.V.I. on one corner. An impending sense of dread turned
to horror when he said, “Damned Yankee colonel...if we
capture him we will hang him to the first tree we come to...”
Then he herded them to the hospital packed with wounded men.
Shoes and socks had been removed from the dead bodies in the
room below and distributed among the rebels. A cavalryman, terribly
slashed around his upper body told her, ”Oh, but I gave
him as good as he sent.”
She eased the suffering of a young man
whose left thumb was nearly shot of by
rubbing his hand and wrist with camphor and wrapping it. Once
again she saw the young man whose stumps she’d covered with
weeds. He seemed quite cheerful about the artificial arms he
would get upon returning home.
Since the troops had just been paid, they asked her to take their
money to families back home. Some she secured in packets stitched
into her skirt and she also took some stitches out of her belt,
tightly folded bills into it and restitched it. Another young
man’s gold watch was wrapped around her waist under her
skirt.
Then she and a large number of others were rounded up and herded
toward Staunton, Virginia--90 miles away. She and the other union
officers’ wives were taken by stage. The wives and children
of the enlisted men had to walk. One night they slept on floors
and went without food the following day. Finally, they were put
on a train
until they reached a bridge the yankees had destroyed. So they
had to stop again.
When they pleaded for food, they were told they could only have
some if they paid for it. Although the women had money with them,
the Southerners were so convinced that they would prevail that
they were unwilling to take anything but Confederate currency.
In order to buy decent food she and the other wives of officers
sold their excess clothing to Southern women through a “colored”
intermediary. Due to the coastal blockade, the South had difficulty
obtaining supplies as well as cloth and clothing.
After being vilified and spat at by southern women upon arrival
in Richmond, they were marched off to a dreary old tobacco warehouse
turned prison and dubbed “Castle Thunder.” The “Castle”
part of the name was someone’s idea of humor. The “Thunder”
part was for the constant pounding of cannon in the distance.
Fortunately, they were not too thoroughly searched and Maria
Electa only had to turn over some letters she was to have carried
home for the wounded. The watch and money were never discovered.
And she managed to prevail upon a guard who took a
silver cup and spoon from a woman to return it so that the mother
could give her child its medication.
There were openings in the walls, but no windows or coverings.
A few cots and dirty blankets were provided, but Maria Electa
and most of the rest chose to sleep on the floor with their depleted
satchels for pillows and their shawls for cover. They were only
allowed to go down into the yard once a day, if they were lucky,
for water. One nursing mother apparently ceased to lactate due
to dehydration and her child
starved to death. The Confederates were just going to dig a hole
to bury the little one. However, Maria Electa prevailed upon
them to take some of their remaining funds to purchase a shroud
and coffin for the child. She had to prepare it for burial with
a spit bath since there was no access to water.
As hungry as they were, they simply could not eat some of the
food provided. However, another prisoner, a “colored”
man, whom she described as the only friend they had while in
prison, was allowed to take their money and shop for edible food.
They paid as much as $2 a pound for butter.
While all of this was going on, Union Secretary of War Edwin
M. Stanton was huffily corresponding with a Major-General Schenck
on July 1st about Col. Washburn’s concerns for his wife.
Word had previously reached the War Department of the incarceration
of officers’ wives through The Richmond Dispatch
(which apparently used the news to buoy Southern spirits). However,
it wasn’t precisely clear who the women were.
Ultimately, the women and children were identified, exchanged
and returned, cheering when they saw the stars and stripes on
the vessel that carried them down the James River and up the
coast to Annapolis.
Although exhausted, they slept little in Baltimore, where the
terrible moans of wounded men brought from the previous day’s
battle in Gettysberg filled the air.
Four pages of War Department correspondence from the National
Archives indicate that the South tried to pull a fast one regarding
the women’s release, and Secretary Stanton withheld release
of 300 Southern women and children, already upon a vessel and
set for exchange, until things were straightened out.
Physically and mentally exhausted, Maria Electa and Mrs. Simmons
spent a few days in Washington, cleaning up and resting before
their journey home. However, by the time they reached Barnesville
and discovered there would be no stage the next day, which was
a Sunday, they just hired a team and headed for home.
Maria Electa’s oldest daughter spotted them from the top
of the church steps as they entered town. Bounding down the steps
and shouting all the while that they’d heard their father
had been shot from his horse and their mother was dead, she hurtled
up and into her mother’s arms.
“She did not go to church that day.” And there
was great rejoicing that Sabbath morning as “..my house
was filled with neighbors and friends all to welcome me home...”
While it was true that the colonel’s horse had been shot
from under him (which was how the rebel officer confiscated his
saddle cloth at Winchester), he had struggled back to his feet
and led his men into battle.
Having never heard of Maria Electa’s adventures, it was
thrilling to read this journal about a loving couple from a small
midwestern town who displayed heroism and valor beyond belief
when their lives were suddenly turned upside down -- a couple
who then had the ability to quietly return to living somewhat
ordinary and long lives.
Heroes walk among us -- even among our ancestors.
©2012 by Barbara
McFadden. This column first posted March 12, 2012.
You can comment on this column online via our TALKBACK page. Please address your e-mail message to either "The Editors" or Barbara McFadden at Syndpack@aol.com
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