Thursday, January 13, 2011

Enlistment Ran High In Montgomery During Civil War

The Montgomery Advertiser yesterday ran the second in a three-part series about life in Montgomery during the Civil War, written by John H. Napier, III and originally in the 1988 Alabama Review magazine.

General Napier suggests that one out of four white persons - man, woman and child - in Montgomery had enlisted by mid-1862. Doubtless the excitement accompanying Montgomery's being the Cradle of the Confederacy stimulated recruiting, even though the capital had moved to Richmond in the late spring of 1861.

Napier suggests that the local ladies also claimed a share of the credit. He quotes a local spinster who in 1907 recalled that the womens' first efforts were naturally directed toward the army. "To them" he quotes, "a man who failed to see the glorious necessity for joining the army was almost a traitor".

He closes this portion of his article by saying that "we find the beautiful young women using the incentive of their beauty to further their country's cause!"

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