(Editor’s note: Second in a Women’s History Month series)
Harriet Leonora Straw married Col. James Anderson Whiteside 10 months after the 1843 death of his first wife, Mary Jane Massengale Whiteside, thereby becoming the young matriarch of a family with five children. While welcoming nine more children during the next 14 years, Harriet Whiteside served alongside her husband as he rose to increased prominence and wealth. His death on Nov. 12, 1861, propelled his widow to the lead in controlling the family fortune while guaranteeing the safety of her children and their home. Her responsibilities were made even more difficult as Chattanooga became critical to each of the opposing forces in the U.S. Civil War. While 1862 found Confederate Braxton Bragg using the city as the headquarters for his Army of Tennessee, 1863 witnessed Union troops pouring into Chattanooga after the Battle of Chickamauga and settling into a quasi-control that would become permanent after the decisive battle of Missionary Ridge.
Harriet Whiteside signed a Union loyalty oath before the Battle of Chickamauga, but a shaky relationship existed between the strong-willed woman and the Union forces occupying the city. She provided rooms for several Union officers in her home but she was not easily intimidated. Ordered to leave her home, she refused. When a Union officer attempted to remove her rosewood piano, he was surprised to find that she had stationed two daughters at opposite ends of the piano, one with a hatchet and the other with an ax, with orders that, if the officer moved toward the piano, they were to chop it into kindling.
Few were surprised when she and her children were deported in the spring of 1864 by orders from Gen. William T. Sherman. No one who knew Harriet Whiteside was surprised when she returned more than a year later.
Her home at the time was occupied by Union officers; she and the children were allocated one room. When one of the children became ill with chicken pox, a Chattanooga physician friend posted a “pox” sign on the house. The Union officers quickly withdrew. Now her real work began. Determined to regain control of all that had been taken from her after she had signed the loyalty oath, she initiated a series of legal actions. Before proceeding to evaluate her claims, the courts demanded a $20,000 security deposit that would be forfeited if she did not continue to keep her oath.