Families of slain soldiers followed a strict protocol during the Civil War

CHARLESTON — In Saturday’s burial procession for the crew of the H.L. Hunley, Judi Flowers of Portsmouth, Va., will march the 4½ miles from the Battery to Magnolia Cemetery fully veiled in a vintage 1863 mourning gown. The dress is hooped, of fully lined black silk and trimmed in black velvet. It is embroidered with the ace of spades — the symbol of death. At her neck will be a lock of a Confederate soldier’s hair embedded in a brooch.

When asked about the South’s loss in the Civil War, she replied sternly, “Who says we lost? To lose, one must first give up.” Flowers will be one of about 10,000 people who will march in Saturday’s procession honoring the crew of the Hunley, the first submarine to sink an enemy ship in combat.

The entourage will include a contingent of “widow weepers,” reenactors portraying women of the South who lost loved ones in battle. They will dress according to the Victorian cult of mourning.

Understanding the elaborate code and the devastating effect the war had on many Southern women is key to unlocking why many still have such an emotional connection to the war today. This week’s memorials and events are an outgrowth of that cult, historians say. The ceremonies are intended to honor one’s ancestors, symbolized by the Hunley crew.

“The war was tragic for everyone, North and South,” said Mary Hatcher, a former National Park Service historian and now owner of The Lady’s Maid, a historical clothing shop in Mount Pleasant. “But in the South, the tragedy was on a larger scale.”

Flowers explains: The war was mostly fought in the South. Most of the estimated 620,000 soldiers killed, Union or Confederate, died in the South.

“That made every back yard, every churchyard a cemetery,” she says. “Nearly every family lost someone. Some families more.”

When the Yankees invaded, they practiced “total war,” destroying public buildings and often the homes and fields of civilians who supported rebel troops. In the process, they also destroyed one of the South’s most precious possessions, its archives.

Many documents that proved ownership of property were gone, as well as family heirlooms, church records, the family genealogy — the very identity of many white Southerners, particularly in the aristocracy.

As a result, it was the family Bible, the odd heirloom, word of mouth, and the memories of the elderly that held the remnants of what is now referred to as “heritage.”

“It became more important in the South to grasp that history and hold on to it,” said Flowers, a costume designer for television and movies. “The war affected us more deeply.”

That loss, coupled with the cult of mourning, led to ceremonies such as the one playing on in Charleston this week, Hatcher said.

Honoring the men of the Hunley, is a way to honor all the men who died in the war and pass on their memory, she said — like a grieving lady would carry a lock of a loved one’s hair in piece of jewelry.

“We are the history now,” she said. “What we are doing now will be significant for someone 140 years from now.”

The concept of ritual mourning was almost single-handedly created and written by Queen Victoria of Britain after the passing of her husband, Prince Albert, in 1861 — coincidentally at the start of the Civil War.

“She was the most powerful and visible woman in the world,” Hatcher said. “And women throughout the world aspired to do what she was doing.”

The queen dressed in full black until her death in 1902, 40 years after Albert passed away.

She developed elaborate stages of mourning, codes of dress and accessories, and rules of conduct.

The cult of mourning was observed throughout the United States, North and South, as well as in Europe. But it had a longer life in the South.

At the time of the Civil War, a great immigration from Europe to the United States had begun. Most of those immigrants came to Northeastern cities and spread to the Midwest. As a result, the tradition was diluted, Hatcher said.

But in the South, families struggled with poverty and displacement for decades after the war and became more insular as a method of survival. Traditions were more dutifully observed as a way to remember and honor both the men killed in the war and their former way of life.

Today, women such as Flowers use the dresses, the jewelry and veils to pass on a history that has largely faded from memory.

That is why, she said, she will be wearing the vintage gown and marching in the Hunley procession.

“There is no more appropriate day to wear it,” she said.

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