September 22, 2011
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/22/2011
Carte-de-visite of Andelia Bull, with JM Tomlinson, Artist & Photographer, La Grange, Georgia, backmark. Fine condition. Near the beginning of the Civil War, almost all of the men of LaGrange, Georgia, enlisted in the Confederate Army, leaving the small town unprotected. Two upper-class ladies and some graduates of the LaGrange Female College decided that they should gather the women and form a female militia to help protect their community. They called themselves the Nancy Harts in honor of Georgia's Revolutionary War heroine, who single-handedly defended her home against a group of invading British soldiers. The ladies of LaGrange formed a female militia to help protect their town. They held their first meeting at the nearby school house in May of 1861. They called on all available women to come and bring any guns or pistols they could find. Forty women responded to the call, meeting to organize at an old red schoolhouse. Nancy Morgan was elected captain; Andelia Bull, Mary Heard and Aley Smith lieutenants; Augusta Hill and M.E. Colquitt sergeants; Sally Bull, Leila Pullen and Caroline Poythress corporals; and Ella Key treasurer. Although a few other Southern cities armed women briefly in response to local crises, LaGrange's women are considered unique, because their group would become a well-organized, disciplined, commissioned military company that would train regularly for almost three years. Dr. Augustus Ware agreed to help the ladies drill, because he was too debilitated to enlist in the army. Clothed in their regular attire of day dresses, some in hoops, and their hats, they drilled two days a week. Some evenings the ladies would drill, followed by loud and boisterous marching through town to keep the townspeople aware of their presence. By the end of the war the women had become sharpshooters and expert markswomen.
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