CRAVEN COUNTY, NC - MILITARY - Heroines of the Confederacy ----¤¤¤---- HEROINES OF THE CONFEDERACY, NEW BERN AND VICINITY, 1861-1865 On a plantation up Trent River lived Mrs. Rachel Ellis Hancock Foy, widow of Enoch Foy. She had a very harrowing experience during the war. “Her son Franklin was a scout in a very hazardous service for the army, a reward being offered by the Federals for his capture. As Franklin Foy was scouting in the district around New Bern, bringing valuable information, the Yankees thinking he would visit his mother and his small children, who lived in that vicinity, came out from New Bern, 800 strong. In their effort to capture Foy, they surrounded Mrs. Foy’s home, locking her and her grandchildren in a room, giving all her keys to the servants, making them rulers over her household.” They camped in her grove for three days, not allowing anything to be carried to her, though some of her faithful servants secretly slipped food and water. Finally the soldiers marched off without capturing the Scout Foy. In the home of Mrs. Thomas S. Gillette (Harriett Oliver, daughter of John Oliver and Penelope Becton Oliver) they encountered Confederate soldiers and a skirmish took place in the large grove around the home. Mrs. Gillette was very ill and not able to be moved to a place of safety. In the excitement she rolled off her bed, a bullet passing through the bed where she had been lying. There were many unsung heroines in New Bern and vicinity. Colonel Stephen D. Pool told this incident in Clark’s North Carolina Histories. Colonel Pool says that in November 1862 he was ordered to Trenton, NC to capture a Federal train. In the early morning hours an elderly country man dashed up on a fastly ridden horse, and delivered to him a paper which on being opened appeared to be blank. The rider said that a young girl had ridden alone to his door in the darkness of night and delivered this note and told him to take it at full speed to any Confederate officer at Trenton as it contained important information. Colonel Pool applied to the seemingly blank sheet paper a hot iron, the heat bringing out the writing, probably written with milk. It said that the Federal General had returned to New Bern two days sooner than anticipated and was to leave that very morning with forces accurately detailed on the paper on an expedition to burn the railroad bridge at Weldon. The object of Colonel Pool’s plans being thus frustrated he returned at once to Kinston and gave the officer in command the information which he had secured through the daring of this loyal girl of the Confederacy. Such an array of troops was placed in front and upon the flanks of the Federal General as to cause him to rapidly retrace his steps. “The lady requested that her name not be told but it was found that she was one most tenderly reared and very young, and her ride at great personal risk to convey this important information, was greatly appreciated by the Confederates.” “Although this the only story of a woman of the Confederacy recorded in the State’s Regimental Histories amongst the daring deeds of the men of North Carolina,” there are many stories recorded in family diaries and letters, giving accounts of the many wonderful and brave deeds performed by the women of the Confederacy. Among the women of New Bern, who served when the town was taken by the Federals, was Miss Mary Attmore. She was kept as one of the hostages to insure safety of the Federals within the town as they were fearful that New Bern would be fired on by troops without. Miss Attmore’s relatives protested but she refused to leave home and twice she was almost choked to death by plunderers. On one occasion in the early morning she awoke to find several Federals digging up the graves in her family burial ground. Without calling for help, she appeared among them and ordered them to put down their shovels. The men obyed her command. After replacing the earth on the graves, they departed. Thomas Attmore was the revolutionary ancestor of Miss Mary Attmore. Mrs. F. C. Roberts, a daughter of Mrs. J. C. Cole, one of the most loyal of the Confederates, told the story of New Bern’s capture and the great suffering of its women. She said that “those who remained in New Bern could hear nothing from their loved ones outside of the town,” during the occupation of New Bern except through the underground mail. With the help of Governor Stanley, an old friend of her father, Mr. J. C. Cole, permission was obtained for Mrs. Alexander Taylor to go freely about town and to visit and assist the poor sufferers in prison. In her many false pockets, she was able to conceal and deliver mail. A Federal officer spoke to Mrs. Taylor concerning mail, stating that it was very strange “where this Rebel mail comes in or who receives it.” She laughingly replied that she received it, and “at this moment my pockets are full of letters,” asking if he would like to see them. Fortunately it passed as a joke or she would have been shot as a spy. Both Mrs. Cole and Mrs. Taylor tended their own gardens, rolled wheelbarrows and raised vegetables for their own tables and to sell. Mrs. Elizabeth Carraway Howland rendered valuable aid when New Bern was captured in sending out specifications of the forts the Yankees were making and other information to the Confederate troops. She doctored Confederate prisoners ill with yellow fever and was known as a “prison angel.” Besides the persecution of the Yankees, New Bern women suffered severely from a scourge of yellow fever caused by great quantities of meat which was allowed to decay on scorching wharves. They nursed the sick and assisted in burying the dead. Mrs. Julius Lewis kept northern officers in her home to get news for the Confederacy from them for which she could have been shot as a spy, if it had become known. “Mrs. A. M. Meekins ran the blockade into New Bern to ascertain for General Lee the exact stength of the Federal forces there before the Confederate attack on Fort Fisher, disguised as a country woman with a bale of cotton to sell. She got the desired information and carried it safety through the Union lines.” Mrs. (Alexander) Taylor was referred to as the “Prison Mother” by many, and among these, a lady from Beaufort, Miss Emeline Pigott, who barely escaped being shot as a spy, and although Miss Pigott was from Carteret County, she was imprisoned in New Bern, where it is said an attempt was made on her life by administering chloroform through her prison window. “At the begining of the war Miss Pigott, then a young girl, had given her whole heart to the cause of the South, nursing the sick and wounded soldiers, who were brought in from the attacks on our coasts. Her soldier sweetheart fell in the Battle of Gettysburg, and after that Emeline Pigott felt that she must do even more for the Confederacy. She offered herself for secret service work in the Confederate government, and bore important dispatches in large pockets adjusted under her full skirts. Many dangerous journeys were made by her between New Bern, which was occupied by the Yankees, and the seaports, and she narrowly escaped capture very often, going through great danger to fulfill her mission.” At one time she was seized and while being searched, she swallowed the important message she was carrying. After she was confined in prison, her friends worked diligently to free her without success. Finally “she sent for some influential men in New Bern whom she knew were traitors, telling them if she were brought to trial, she would disclose things that would cause them to suffer. So their influence was brought to bear with the Federal authorities and she was released without a trial.” She lived to be 80 years old and her name is held in the highest venerations. (From the Elizabeth Moore Collection, Special Collections, Joyner Library, East Carolina University, Greenville, 322. Permission to publish granted. Transcribed by Florence Fulford Moore.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by: Florence Fulford Moore FFFMoore@aol.com -----------------------------------------------------------------------------