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.75At first women did not always see their divisions coming. I have no ideaHattie dear that your surprise was greater on reading my views.than mineon learning you were a Black Republican, twenty-four-year-old Emma Berry,of Orange County, Virginia, wrote her sister, Harriet Read, in Vermont, dur-ing March 1861.76 Emma acknowledged a mutual element of surprise in be-coming aware that Harriet had assumed a political stance so contrary to herown.Similar discoveries of difference were common in women s correspon-dence, but these revelations emerged slowly, sometimes a year or more intothe war. You seem surprised that I see this wretched war in a different lightfrom you, one woman wrote to her sister in Virginia in August 1862, but I amsure that I have expressed myself just so to you more than once when we havemet. 77 How clearly or forcefully she expressed herself is another question.These sisters, like others, tended to explain away their wartime differencesby their geographic distance or by the different loyalties of the families intowhich they had married.These explanations, however, did not mitigate theawkwardness that inevitably arose from the unfamiliarity of wartime divi-sion. I am sure she still loves me, twenty-one-year-old Josie Underwood,of Bowling Green, Kentucky, wrote of her friend Lizzie in 1861, but there isrestraint in our intercourse now.so visiting together isn t so pleasant. 78Many women tried to avoid discussing the war.A Union woman of Leba-non, Missouri, urged her Confederate cousins to not let difference in politi-cal views interfere with our friendship. 79 Unionist Sarah Bibb of Frankfort,Kentucky, devised more specific guidelines.She managed to remain on a decent social footing with her Confederate friends by initiating a ban onwar conversation. If we were to visit, Bibb told a niece, the subject [of war]must be dropped. This had succeeded in the past and we go on as usual. 80Most of these women seemed to believe that if they prevented the war or politics from intruding in their conversations, they could maintain theirnormal sisterly relations.Harriet Archer Williams, of Harford County, Mary- brothers and sisters 83land, was pleased to report in 1864 that my southern friends are always kindas ever & I have never noticed any change. Williams promised to return thekindness.Months later she explained that until they say or do something tooffend I consider it my duty to treat them all as I have always done. 81 Therewas an implicit quid pro quo in these wartime friendships: if a woman wastreated with understanding and restraint by her friends, then she would re-spond in kind.Accordingly, Sophie DuPont of Delaware welcomed into herhome a Virginia relative, Charlotte Cazenove, who contained her Confeder-ate loyalties.Cazenove may have been a warm little rebel, but DuPont waspleased to see that she behaves admirably here, never breathing a word aboutpolitics. 82Other informal rules emerged to govern divided women s friendships.Somewomen objected to any hint that a friend was becoming less amiable or dis-tancing herself socially.Agnes Babb, a Unionist in Baltimore, noticed in 1862that her friend Mary did not visit as often as usual.Several months later, Babblearned that other friends had hosted two large parties the previous winter towhich she was not invited. I feel rather vexed with them, Babb wrote herbrother John, I don t like to be slighted. She vowed to treat her friends thesame way and refused to visit them again.It was not her friends Confederatesympathies that alienated Babb but rather their unwillingness to keep theirdifferences on the war out of their relationship.83 Other considerations, suchas the military progress of the war, sometimes prompted women to be extrathoughtful and compassionate when interacting with their friends
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