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Prostitution in Civil War America

Prostitution in the American Civil War experienced a massive influx into the profession by females seeking a source of income for their families or themselves as individuals. Urban centers and areas around encampment sites became densely crowded and popular meeting places for prostitutes and their clients. Throughout the span of the War, rates of venereal diseases increased, leading to attempts in the Western Theater to regulate the conspicuous and profitable industry in Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee. Hospitals were established for women to receive check-ups and they were required to register with the city in order to avoid fines or imprisonment. In the Eastern Theater, prostitution centers expanded as soldiers camped and boarded in the neighboring cities; however, there were no attempts to formally regulate prostitution, rather fines were imposed and often heavily ignored.

Prostitutes: Who were they and why did they do it?

In order to recognize who a prostitute was or how they were identified by the 19th century American public, it is important to observe popular euphemisms for the term ‘prostitute.’ Prostitutes were given the following nicknames as a means of describing their fall from the sphere of true womanhood and lack of sexual purity: Degraded Daughters of Eve, Soiled Doves, Fallen Women, Daughters of Pleasure, The Fair but Frail, Immoral Temptress, Aspasia, Girl on the Town, The Unfortunate Children of Sorrow, and Bawds. Brothels, or places of prostitution, also had their euphemistic names, such as: House of Ill Repute, Sporting House, Temple of Venus, Den of Vice, and Disorderly House.

According to Dr. William Sanger the average age for a ‘lady of the evening’ was between twenty-two and twenty-four; however, it was no uncommon for twelve and thirteen year old girls to be soliciting their bodies for money. During the Civil War most of the prostitutes originated from the South and were supplied locally, as most of the fighting was done in the region. However, while most prostitutes were Southern women, the majority of customers were Union soldiers as they received “better pay and offered more frequent and easy access to cities.” The irony of prostitution in the Civil War as Catherine Clinton calls it is that the “sex for sale was most often across enemy lines [and vice versa].”

         Some experts from the era claimed women would only be inclined to enter the sex trade if it had run in her blood.  However, there were numerous reasons why a woman might feel apt to selling sex. Dr. Sanger’s study mentioned inclinations and want of sexual behavior, destitution, seduction, and want of alcohol or idleness as reasons for entering prostitution; most cited destitution and a means of survival for utilizing the sex industry.  Prior to the Civil War, from 1830 to about 1860, prostitution was equated to being a public health problem as girls and young women continuously moved into the public sphere in order to make a living.  Mainly concerned about women leaving the “cult of true womanhood” or their place within domestic life, any women seen sexually active outside of marriage was deemed a “prostitute.”  Since women were portrayed as sexless God-fearing creatures, anything outside of that stereotype was deemed immoral or worthy of being a prostitute. It is important to note that most women did not consider themselves prostitutes as most women were engaging in “casual prostitution” with acquaintances. These women were regarded as professionals, and only “public women” who solicited sex to multiple partners for money were the true prostitutes.  As the Civil War became a reality, these public women began actively engaging in what “real” prostitutes did – solicit to multiple partners. It should be noted that there is a difference between “kept women” who were in private arrangements with one man as they traded sex for up-keep, and a “public women” or prostitute who had more sexually open-ended relations with men.

       	Prostitutes in the 19th century were not easily identifiable as they were entangled with society, and they often did not wish to standout.  Most prostitutes originated from the working class, worked part-time (in prostitution), and wished to keep their “side job” secret in order to re-enter respectable society.  However, there were many audacious and flamboyant prostitutes who felt no shame dressing in the latest European fashions or parading around on horseback (sometimes topless) with military commanders.  Some prostitutes went out “hatless” and were “immaculately dressed” in the latest fashions from Europe, which aristocratic women in America were not able to attain.  While some women paraded around in brightly colored clothes, other women openly invited men for some fun ‘activities’ and exhibited themselves in precarious positions in windows or in behavioral mannerisms. One Confederate soldiers in Richmond, VA observed, “Go to the Capital Square any afternoon and you may pass these women promenading up and down the shady walks jostling respectable ladies into gutters.”

Like the rest of society, prostitutes were caste into social tiers. Upper-class women were often considered ‘ruined’ after entering the profession, yet middle and working class women could be redeemed through moral purification and repentance. The high-class prostitutes were courtesans and mistresses who were considered fashionable, beautiful, and intelligent. Second tier prostitutes were generally madams who did not see clients, but relied on taking a percentage from her boarders. Madams could run parlor houses, which were sometimes in lavish neighborhoods while other times they ran boarding houses in a mediocre part of the city. The last class of prostitutes can be bunched together to form brothels. These prostitutes could range from streetwalkers to women who rented a room in a ‘crib.’ Women famously entered the area as “laundresses, cooks, or wives,” looking to fraternize with the troops in encampments, this would eventually stifled by regulations; however, it did not stop women from trying to penetrate the inside walls of the camps in order to make a profit.

While some prostitutes were taken care of because of their value, others were put in dangerous situations. All prostitutes could be subjected to abuse from rape, beatings, or murder by their clients, lovers, and sometimes madams. They also were exposed to venereal diseases and the potential for undesired pregnancies loomed overhead. In order to further caste prostitution, Blue Books were created to allow more customers to get more “bang” for their buck. All along the eastern seaboard places of prostitution were listed and given ratings so that customers could choose a suitable woman.

Prostitution in the East: Richmond and Petersburg – A Brief Synopsis

              Richmond, VA: The Confederate Capital saw an exponential population increase from 38,000 people in 1861 to 128,000 in 1864.  The almost constant presence of Union and Confederate troops in the area because of the capital city and fighting around the area brought an influx of prostitutes into the city. Above gambling shops in Locust Alley behind the Ballard and Exchange Hotels, prostitutes ran rampant often adorning the latest fashions and accompanied by generals on horseback.  One notable Richmond prostitute, Clara, wrote about only taking Union money from generals, because of the higher value and inflation of Confederate money.  As some women, like Clara were living the aristocratic lifestyle, other madams such as Catherine Blankership were subjected to the press and described as “dirty” and “covering her [their] face” presumably with shame. Mayor Mayo even sent out orders to curtail the growth of prostitution by “raiding disorderly houses.”

               Petersburg/City Point, Virginia: Because of the long siege around Petersburg and City Point troops remained in the city for approximately nine months. This left women looking for long-term access to salaries through prostitution. “Soldiers would sneak into town to avail themselves of prostitutes’ services or women might set up shop a few hundred yards outside camp.”  One soldier from the 14th Indiana wrote to his wife saying one in every ten houses was a bawdy house – a “Perfect Sodom.”  One Sanity Commission worker called City Point a “city of whores,” and complained that women would charge $3 on payday instead of their normal going-rate of $1.  While he despised the long waits in line, without the lines and prostitutes it was believe many soldiers would resort to rapping women and bedding each other, and these immoral acts were considered unthinkable.

Prostitution in the West: Nashville and Memphis: A Brief Synopsis

               Nashville, Tennessee: Following the Federal occupation of Nashville, prostitutes soon come to the city in flocks with the 30,000 Union troops now in the area.  In order to rid the city of the ‘filth’ 1,500 prostitutes were shipped to Louisville, Kentucky in the winter of 1862-1863; however, General R.S. Granger was “almost hourly beset” and “wanted to be rid of ‘diseased prostitutes.’”  On July 6th, 1863, an order was issued for public women to evacuate the town, and on June 8th the ship Idahoe was secured to transport these women to Louisville. Once the Idahoe reached Louisville it was turned away and sent to Cincinnati where some women jumped off board or were rescued because the boat was against denied to port.  After this massive disaster plan to export the prostitutes from Nashville, Lt. Col. Spalding had another idea to regulate this seemingly out-of-control industry. Spalding’s plan required the prostitutes to be registered with the city, to essentially keep an inventory of who is doing business. The prostitutes were required to undergo monthly inspections. A hospital for prostitutes was established for “invalids” and many women actually enjoyed the new attention being spent on their health as diseases were treated and contained.  However, while public women saw this as special treatment, the Union Army’s intention was the “Object of the former to diminish the number of diseased prostitutes to curtail the number of patients in the latter [soldiers].”  The exception to the registration and treatment rule were the “kept mistresses” who were maintained by “gentleman.”  The regulation of prostitution in Nashville ceased by February 1865 after being considered a “great success” in the first attempt to regulate the prostitution industry in America.

               Memphis, Tennessee: Memphis was the second attempt to regulate prostitution in Tennessee and only lasted about five months from September 1864 to around February 1865.  Soldiers claimed the black prostitutes “felt loving toward us because they thought we were bringing them freedom and they would not charge a cent.”  Newspapers claimed steamboats imported women from the North where they could “consort” with officers in broad daylight.  However, this all ended in July/August of 1864 when the city was placed under military command. On September 30th a printed documented only to be seen by the women gave descriptive regulations such as: registering with the city and take out weekly certificates, call the City Medical Inspector to pay a visit and receive a medical certificate, streetwalking and consorting with officers in public was now prohibited, and any woman without her certificate on October 10th would surely receive punishment.  In all 134 women registered in Memphis during the five month period.

Miscellaneous Information:

• In Atlanta, Georgia under General Sherman, women were required to document their “respectability,” or face punishment. • Washington, D.C. fined girls $5 or three months in jail and madams $50 or six months in jail if caught engaging in prostitution. • In New Orleans, black women were sent to brothels as “fancy girls” and sold for around $2,000 for their beauty. • General Orders #28 under General Butler in New Orleans deemed any woman a “prostitute” or “public women” who dared make any vulgar gesture or remark towards a Union soldier. • In Richmond, Virginia there was a demonstration of public women when over 300 prostitutes swarmed the coroner’s office after their ‘sister’ at Alice Hardgrove’s brothel on Fifteenth Street was brutally murdered. • Common assumed names for prostitutes in the Civil War were: Elizabeth, Mary, Martha, and Eliza. • The problem of soldiers contracting venereal diseases was not necessarily the death rate (which was low from V.D.), but the loss of numbers from the ranks. Approximately only one in eleven Union soldiers would contract venereal disease during the Civil War.

Conclusion:

              As one can gather from the synopsis of prostitution during the Civil War, women felt compelled to the trade for various reasons, such as escaping abuse to inclinations to sexual experiences. However, women were not predisposed because of genetics to engage in prostitution. As troops entered the cities and encamped in surrounding areas, the numbers of prostitutes in urban centers increased causing widespread rates of infection and lewdness not previously seen before the War. Venereal disease infected soldiers and prostitutes, and regulation was sought to quell the spread of these illnesses. Prostitutes and madams could be fined or put in jail for lewd or suggestive acts while officers simply paid for pleasure. Public scrutiny of prostitution was everywhere, from pure women to moral activists seeking to return these fallen women to respectable society. It is also seen through miscellaneous facts that women were not just regulated for prostitution, but for anything that stepped out of the bounds of the “cult of domesticity.” Female sexuality according to Victorian standards was supposed to be pure and unwanted. Prostitution not only suggested females falling from grace, but also their desires to be financially independent from males in their lives, and their possible want for sexual encounters.

Bibliography:

Clinton, Catherine. “’Public Women’ and Sexual Politics during the American Civil War” in Battle Scars: Gender and Sexuality in the American Civil War, edited by Catherine Clinton and Nina Silber, 61-77, New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Dabney, Virginius. Richmond: The Story of a City. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1990. Leech, Margaret. Reveille in Washington: 1860-1865. New York: Harper, 1941.

Lowry, Thomas P. The Story the Soldiers Wouldn’t Tell: Sex in the Civil War. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994. Massey, Mary Elizabeth. Bonnet Brigades: American Woman and the Civil War. New York: Knopf, 1966. Putnam, Sallie B. Richmond during the War: Four Years of Observation by a Richmond Lady. New York: G. W. Carleton, 1867.

Rable, George. “’Missing in Action’: Women of the Confederacy” in Divided Houses: Gender and the Civil War, edited by Catherine Clinton and Nina Silber, 140, New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Reese, Annette J. "Where the Boys Are: Prostitution From the Mining Camps to Civil War Reenactments." The Citizens' Companion. no. February-March (1998): 12-18.

Rosen, Ruth. The Lost Sisterhood: Prostitution in America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1982.

Thomas, Sharita. “Prostitution and the Civil War.” From Internet Archi, C-SPAN. Video, 1:27:51. http://www.c-span.org/video/?299007-1/prostitution-civil-war

Topping, Elizabeth. "The Madonna/Magdalene Syndrome: The Victorian Double Standard." The Citizens' Companion. no. August-September (2002): 22-27. Topping, Elizabeth A. What's a Poor Girl to Do? Prostitution in Mid-Nineteenth Century America. Gettysburg: Thomas Publications, 2001.

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