Category: Generals Wives

Wife of Union General Nathaniel Banks Mary Theodosia Palmer was born October 16, 1819 in Charlestown, Massachusetts, the daughter of Jeduthan and Sarah Palmer. In her youth, Mary worked at the spinning frame in a Waltham textile mill, where she met Nathaniel Prentice Banks, son of one of the foremen there. Banks had attended a one-room school run by his father’s company, and then began working at the mill as a bobbin boy, responsible for replacing bobbins full of thread with empty ones. He also assisted his father in making furniture, and after a few years apprenticed as a mechanic for the company. Image: Theodosia Palmer Banks By Matthew Brady, circa 1860 Nathaniel Banks subsequently edited several local weekly newspapers,…

Wife of Union General Gouverneur Warren Image: Emily Chase, soon to be Mrs. G.K. Warren New York State Library On St. Valentine’s Day 1862, Emily Forbes Chase met Gouverneur Warren at a party in Baltimore, and they fell in love. She was twenty-one at the time. The couple were married on June 17, 1863, and two weeks later General Warren was defending Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg. Emily Forbes Chase was born on September 16, 1840, the oldest of four children of a prosperous dry-goods merchant, Algernon Sydney Chase, who settled in Baltimore in 1850. In the spring of 1861, Emily’s mother, Mary Augusta Chase, became famous for defiantly flying the Stars and Stripes from the family…

Wife of Confederate Officer Sandie Pendleton Early Years Katharine Carter Corbin was born in July 1839 at the Laneville estate in King and Queen County, Virginia, the daughter of James Parke Corbin, whose family had lived in the Rappahannock River valley for generations. Richard Corbin succeeded Lord Dunmore and served as royal governor until the beginning of the American Revolution. Kate and Sandie Pendleton Alexander Sandie Pendleton was born September 28, 1840, near Alexandria, Virginia, the only son of Episcopal minister and future Confederate General William Pendleton and his wife Anzolette Elizabeth Page Pendleton. Sandie spent his childhood in Maryland until his father became rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Lexington, Virginia in October 1853. In 1857, Sandie Pendleton graduated…

Second Wife of General James Longstreet Helen Dortch Longstreet, known as the Fighting Lady, lived a long and eventful life. She earned her nickname as a champion of causes such as preservation of the environment, women’s suffrage and civil rights for African Americans. She also spent a great deal of time and energy defending her husband’s actions during the Civil War. Helen Dortch, born on April 20, 1863 in Carnesville, Georgia, was the daughter of Mary Pulliam and James Speed Dortch. She was educated at the Georgia Baptist Female Seminary in Gainesville, Georgia and the Notre Dame Convent in Baltimore, Maryland. On July 3, 1863, General James Longstreet (1821-1904) strongly objected to plan of attack formulated by General Robert E….

Wife of Union Colonel Robert Gould Shaw Annie Haggerty and Robert Gould Shaw met in 1861; they married in May 1863. Their time together was brief, but their letters sustained them through long separations while Robert served in the Union Army. Twenty six days after their wedding Colonel Shaw left to command the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, the first all-black regiment raised in the free states. Shaw is the principal subject of the 1989 film Glory, in which he is portrayed by Matthew Broderick. Annie is not depicted in the film. Annie Kneeland Haggerty was born July 9, 1835, in New York City to Ogden and Elizabeth Kneeland Haggerty. Annie’s father was a wealthy New York City auctioneer. Robert Gould Shaw…