Under Construction @ Keele 2019 summer 2019, vol 5 issue 1 | страница 11

their mistress’s inexperience and lack of confidence. Despite the considerable shift in social
dynamics, many elite women clung to the traditions that had existed prior to the war, and
they subsequently still expected the protection of men in exchange for their compliance with
the patriarchal social structure. Rumours of violence from "negro brutes" swept across the
counties and increased female anxiety about their personal safety now that they lacked the
protection of a male authority figure. 4 Even women who had never before feared their slaves
began to, and letters from wealthy white women requesting exemptions and furloughs for
their menfolk quickly began to flood into the offices of the Confederate leaders. Notably, most
of the letters still rang through with what appears to be genuine patriotism; however, they
still clearly demonstrate the level of concern that slaveholding women felt. Hattie Motley
wrote to the secretary of war, pleading for him to discharge her husband, she described one
of her slaves as monster "in the shape of a negro man. 5 In fact, the close proximity of slaves
to their mistresses meant some considered them a more significant threat than the Yankees.
Such pleas were often successful, so much so that the government soon moved away
from a policy that gave army commanders the discretion to grant leave, fearing that it would
become too large of an issue. 6 However, the constant pleas of female desperation which
flooded into the offices of the Confederacy increased government anxiety about leaving
women in charge of the "cornerstone" of the Southern society and economic system. Driven
by not only a paternalistic desire to protect female innocence but a pragmatic attempt to
preserve the planting economy, in the October of 1862 Congress passed what became known
as the ‘Twenty-Slave Law.' This order expanded the list of exemptions to include owners and
4
George Rable, Civil Wars: Women and the Crisis of Southern Nationalism, Chicago, University of Illinois Press,
1989, p.84
5
Faust, Mothers of Invention, p.58
6
Rable, Civil Wars, p.84
4