Grander in Her Daughters: Florida's Women during the Civil War

Abstract

In 1861 the Philadelphia Inquirer dubbed Florida “‘the smallest tadpole in the dirty pool of secession’” (p. 1), and certainly the state has been neglected in Civil War scholarship. If Florida is sorely absent from general Civil War studies, then women of the state remain almost nonexistent. The only Florida woman who has received attention is Susan Bradford Eppes of Tallahassee, who seems to epitomize the ideals of the southern belle. As Tracy J. Revels points out, however, nothing could be further from the truth. The majority of Florida's women were blacks, poor whites, or yeoman-class crackers. According to Revels, all Florida women were laborers; even the small number of plantation women were “harried matrons” (p. 3). Thus Florida offers a somewhat different picture of the home front—or does it? Despite valiant efforts to present the perspectives of women across race and class, Revels is forced to rely on elite sources. Thus the early chapters retell a story that is familiar to all scholars of the Southern home front. White women offered open expressions of enthusiasm, while privately they spoke of their doubts and fears. Revels argues that Floridian women were losing heart as early as 1862 by which time state funds for needy families were already proving inadequate.