10/02/2025
Brad Brannon brings us a story that I doubt you've ever heard anything like before.
My great x3 aunt, Adeline Bagley Venable Buice (“Aunt Addie”) was one of 400 women who worked in the fabric mills in my hometown of Roswell, Georgia, during the Civil War. She lived in the “Old Bricks,” an apartment building that is still standing with a historical marker claiming the apartments to be the oldest in the U.S., although that fact is debatable.
The two mills (one for wool, and one for cotton), were located side by side and produced supplies and uniforms for the Confederacy. In 1861, the Confederate government contracted with the mill’s owners to produce the signature gray fabric to be sewn into Confederate military uniforms and various supplies that included canvas for bags and other goods, bandages, rope, and tent cloth.
Aunt Addie’s husband, Joshua Buice, was away serving in the Confederate Army during the time Addie worked at the mill. The wealthier Roswell residents had already fled for their lives in fear of the Union Army’s imminent arrival as General Sherman’s famous march to the sea continued through Georgia toward Savannah. Shortly thereafter, Union troops had arrived and occupied the city of Roswell before they burned the nearby Confederate hub of Atlanta that lay just down the road.
The Roswell mill women stayed behind and remained at their jobs, since many of their husbands were serving in the military all over the South and parts of the North. After all, the mill women, with their humble roots and modest means, had nowhere else to go and no other way to make a living for themselves and their children while their husbands were away at war.
The Roswell Mill was burned by Union troops during General Sherman’s Georgia invasion in July 1864. Sherman ordered the 400 mill workers, who were mostly women, arrested as traitors and charged with treason.
The mill workers were rounded up and forced to walk to Marietta, about 20 miles west of Roswell. Upon reaching the train station in Marietta, the Roswell women, along with the handful of men, were loaded up in box cars and sent to various places “up North” with their children, or in Addie’s case, with her unborn daughter, Mary Ann, since Aunt Addie was very pregnant at the time of her arrest.
There were no trials for the traitors, and they were forced to take an oath of allegiance to the United States, which meant the Union, and not the Southern states that had seceded.
Those who were rounded up were not told where they were being taken, nor did they know if they would ever see Roswell or the South again. They could not write letters or communicate with their husbands, parents, or other loved ones as they were taken prisoner by Union forces.
Some of the women were reportedly r***d on the way to Marietta, although there is the story of at least one empathetic Union officer who moved his troops a mile away from the women during their march to the unknown in order to control the urges of the Union men who had been away from their wives for months or even years.
The Roswell women, their children, and the few men who worked in the mill (all of whom were either too old or too young to serve the Confederacy) left Marietta on July 10 and 11, 1864, with stops in Tennessee along the way to their unknown destinations.
Some of the prisoners were sent to Indiana and Ohio after they were ordered off the train in Louisville, Kentucky, a border state. Most were initially imprisoned or hospitalized at first. Others died of typhoid, measles, and a myriad of other ailments and diseases.
Most of the women could not read or write, and therefore had no way of letting their families know where they were when they reached their destinations. After being released from their hospital prison, some were taken further north and simply turned out on the street with no place to go.
The women did not know if their husbands, fathers, brothers, or anybody else in their families were living or dead. Some women reportedly turned to prostitution in order to survive and provide for themselves and their children, while others starved to death. A few stayed in the North and remarried Northern men.
After the war, most of the men who returned to Roswell found their wives missing and had to presume they were dead. Many of the men remarried and started new families. It was very unlikely that any of the Roswell women would ever find their way home; however, a few made it back and are documented as having returned to Georgia. But the final fates of most of the Roswell women will never be known.
Then there is Aunt Addie.
Addie was one of the lucky few who returned to Georgia in 1869, but only after she and her daughter, Mary Ann, spent five long, grueling, and treacherous years walking 800 miles back to Roswell from Chicago, where they had been exiled.
Mary Ann had been born on the train in 1864 en route to Nashville after leaving Marietta. Mother and newborn daughter then traveled another long train ride to their final destination in Illinois. But miraculously, and through the absolute grace of God, my Aunt Addie made it home to her precious Roswell after traveling mostly on foot for 60 months in the worst conditions possible. A journey that I cannot imagine.
Somewhere along the way, Addie had given birth to another child, John Henry, in 1867, before making it back to Roswell. One can only surmise that Addie had been r***d or sold her body to keep herself and her daughter alive on their way home, with John Henry as the result. As Addie, five-year-old Mary Ann, and two-year-old John Henry arrived in Roswell in August of 1869, they appeared at the door of Addie’s husband, a shocked Joshua Buice. Thinking his beloved Addie was dead, Joshua had remarried and started a second family.
But Joshua welcomed his first wife and daughter with open arms, along with illegitimate John Henry, warmly into his home with his new family, where Addie would live out the rest of her days. John Henry died early, at the tender age of 15, presumably from the unbearable conditions experienced during his first two years of life while enduring an unimaginable journey. But Sister Mary Ann, a steel magnolia like her mother, Addie, lived a long life. Mary Ann Buice Voyles died at the age of 88 in 1952 after marrying and settling in Atlanta.
Adeline Bagley Venable Buice is buried at Sharon Baptist Church Cemetery in Cu***ng, Georgia. Her simple but profound monument is inscribed with powerful words – “Roswell Mill Worker Caught and Exiled to Chicago by Yankee Army 1864 – Returned on Foot 1869.”
Adeline Bagley Venable Buice was born to Harmour Anna Bagley and Henry Thomas Bagley, Sr., my great-great-great-grandfather, in 1825, in Gwinnett County, Georgia. She died on June 25, 1910, in Forsyth County.
Addie first married Sanford Venable, who died an early death, but not before having two children, Richard and Evaline. Widowed Addie later married Joshua B. Buice from Roswell, who fathered William and Mary Ann. John Henry’s father is unknown.
There are no words that can describe or even speculate the absolute torment that my great-great-great Aunt Addie endured on this earth. She died in her mid-eighties and lived a long life like her daughter, Mary Ann. Southern women are indescribable in their inherent fortitude, will, and strength. The roots run deep and can’t be moved. Rest in peace, Aunt Addie. How I wish I could have known you.
