Sarah Ellen Blackwell

Anna Ella Carroll: Secret Strategist, Genius, Feminist and Military Mastermind for the Union During the American Civil War-A Military Genius and Life and Writings Sarah Ellen Blackwell

A woman of political and military genius

Anna Ella Carroll would have been an exceptional woman at any point in history. Born in 1815, her father was the governor of Maryland, and she was the granddaughter of a signatory to the Declaration of Independence. From her place at heart of the American political elite, she took an active role in politics throughout the 1850s, and as the nation marched towards civil war she took an increasingly pro-Union and anti-slavery stance--she freed her own slaves in 1860 when Lincoln was elected to the presidency. Carroll was an ardent Lincoln supporter, and her outstanding work in the authorship of political pamphlets convinced the president that her intellect was a powerful asset. In 1861 she worked with secret agents on the feasibility of a Union invasion of Texas. This led her to reassess the Union's planned Mississippi River expedition, which she found wanting. On her own initiative, Carroll developed a plan for a campaign to invade the south via the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers. This plan was implemented and achieved remarkable success, but Carroll's involvement was kept secret at the time, and credit for her contribution denied after the fact. In fact, in a blatant attack, apparently founded on prejudice against her sex, Carroll suffered protracted abuse, which sought to deny and discredit her pivotal and demonstrably successful role as an advisor to Lincoln on vital political and military matters. Though she was eventually exonerated, it is probably fair to say that, in consequence of being born before her time, Anna Ella Carroll does not hold her justified place as one of the most outstanding women of her nation.

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