Meeting a Rebel Woman at Nashville
Annie Wittenmyer reaches Nashville with the Union advance and finds its remaining women fiercely partisan. At a crowded hotel, women denounce men who will not fight, sing songs praising Beauregard and Davis, and avoid sharing the dining room with Union visitors. One woman, whose baby is named Beauregard, challenges Wittenmyer over the North’s hope of conquering the South and rages at the suggestion that war’s necessities might endanger women. She leaves in fury, though later presents herself as a loyal Union woman. Wittenmyer reflects that Southern women’s passionate refusal to believe in defeat helped prolong the conflict, while a closing verse contrasts war’s destruction with peace, mourning the dead.
By Annie Wittenmyer · First published 1895 · Genre: Civil War Memoir, Historical Nonfiction, Personal Narrative · 864 words
First lines
There was great rejoicing over the fall of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. The gunboats and transport vessels were pressing on to Nashville, which was occupied by the Union army soon after the fall of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. I went up on the first transport.
The women were mostly left behind in the scramble to get out of the city, and they were more intense in war spirit and partisan feeling than the men. In the heat of the excitement the chief hotel was thronged with both parties, where I took lodgings. The women sung ditties about Beauregard and Davis before the door of my bedroom till midnight, at intervals.
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Genres
- Civil War Memoir — A first-person recollection of entering Union-occupied Nashville after the falls of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, focused on lived wartime experience.
- Historical Nonfiction — The narrative records real Civil War events, military occupation, sectional conflict, and social conditions in Nashville.
- Personal Narrative — The account is structured around the author's direct observations, feelings, conversations, and reactions during a specific encounter.
- War Literature — Its central subject is the emotional, political, and social intensity generated by war, including civilian hostility and military presence.
Tags
American Civil War · Union occupation of Nashville · 1862 Tennessee · Fort Henry and Fort Donelson · Union advance · Confederate loyalty · Southern women · women and war · female political partisanship · wartime civilian life · hotel confrontation · Unionism
What this Textopian page supports
Meeting a Rebel Woman at Nashville is listed on Textopian as a historical account by Annie Wittenmyer, dated 1895 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Historical account
- Author: Annie Wittenmyer
- Date: 1895 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Civil War Memoir, Historical Nonfiction, Personal Narrative, War Literature, American Literature
- Length: 864 words
- Structure: 1 section, 21 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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