Omaha daily bee., 1894-03-25
AN UNHONORED HEROINE
The Story Of q Feminine Military Genius
in the Civil War.
DEVOTION OF A MARYLAND WOMAN
Congress Asked to Determine who First
Suggested the Tennessee River Cam
paign The Claim of Anna
Ella Carroll.

Representative Pickler Of South Dakota has
introduced in the house a resolution directing
the committee on military affairs ito ascer-
tain in the interest and the inviolability of
history, - who first suggested the importance
of utilizing for strategic movements the Ten
nessee and Cumberland rivers, which re-
suited in the fall of Forts Henry and Donel-
son.
The chief purpose Of the resolution is to
determine the truth of the claim, made in the
interest Of Anna Ella Carroll, that she had
planned the Tennessee river campaign. The
death of Miss Carroll on the 18th of Febru-
airy last lent a fresh impetus to her claim
for proper credit for distinguished services
in the union cause.
Miss Carroll was one of the few devoutly
loyal women of Maryland during the war.
Her devotion to the cause practically ostra-
cised her in Maryland social circles, but this
only served to intensity her zeal,
In the descriptive catalogue of the con-
grossional library there is a list of docu-
ments in relation to the services of Anna
Ella Carroll, the first of which, dated March
81, 1870, is a petition for compensation for
services, and similar memorials thereafter
till May, 1881. One report on the claim is
made by Senator Cockrell, in 1879, and one
by Representative E. S. Bragg in 1881.
All the letters, reports and documents con-
corning Miss Carrolls literary and military
services have been reproduced from the con
eressional records in the compilation of a
recent manual entitled "A Military Genius, ="
according to the New York Herald. In this
the author, S. Il. Blackwell, sets them forth
with cOmmendable Zeal, in the hope that
even though too late to crafty or benefit the
bitterly disappointed claimant, the anthem
ITCHY of her credentials and the high stand
ing of her vouchers may influence later his
torians to accord TO a woman's %intuitive
genius the credit for q strategic movement
which had not occurred to the naval and
military leaders Wilde as yet the war had
waged many wearyymOnths and hundreds Of
thousands of men had forsaken home for the
fray.
e PLANJwAS INSPIRED.
There was no plan devised by Lincoln or
his generals that dill not entail the almost
impossible forcing of a passage down the
fort crowned Mississippi till it entered the
mind of this Napoleon among women that
there was another way to storm the confed-
eracy at its very hearts core, and the
|promptness and secrecy with which she sub
mitted her plans to the chief executive was
no less an inspiration than its conception.
In a congressional document of 1878 Miss
Carroll thus recounts her connection with
the plan OF the Tennessee campaign:
I'm the autumn OF 1861 my attention was ar
| rested by the confidence expressed by south
ern sympathizers in the southwest that the
Mississippi could not be opened before the
recognition OF southern independence. l de-
termined to inform myself what the pilots
thought of the gunboat expedition then pre-
pairing TO descend the river. On inquiry |
was directed to Mrs. Scott, then In the hotel,
whose husband was a learned pilot. and
learned from her that he was then with the
expedition that had moved againt Belmont,
and the important facts she gave me In
creased my wish to see MIR, Scott, on his
arrival in st. Louis l sent for him. He said
that II was his opinion, and that Of all the
pilots in these waters. that the Mississippi
could not be opened by the gunhoats.
II inquired as to the nayigability Of the