Part Two: Rebecca Felton: The First Female Senator (was also a pro-lynching activist)

**Sophie** (0:01)
Coolzone Media.

**Robert Evans** (0:05)
Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, the podcast that you're currently listening to about our first female senator, technically Rebecca Felton, who when we ended part one, just did the whole Scarlett O'Hara thing, standing in the ruins of her, the home that she loved, right? We actually have a little bit more of the war years to talk about here, but we'll get through all of that. But first, our guest, Samantha McFaye. Sam, you want to plug your pluggables up at the top?

**Samantha McFaye** (0:30)
Yes. I am the host, one of the hosts of Stuff Mom Never Told You, also part of the iHeart Network. We have a book, Stuff Mom Never Told You. We have an account on Instagram and Blue Sky.
I believe it says Mom Stuff.

**Sophie** (0:42)
Sweet.

**Robert Evans** (0:43)
Excellent.

**Samantha McFaye** (0:43)
Unlike what the title says, we don't talk about moms or mom stuff.

**Robert Evans** (0:47)
That's good.

**Samantha McFaye** (0:47)
Just so you know.

**Robert Evans** (0:48)
It's not my strong suit either.
So yeah, let's get into the Civil War, right? Anyway, the war years initially spared the first Felton plantation, right? It quickly though turned out that the flower of Southern manhood was somewhat less suited to warfare than they had anticipated. And so in short order, the Felton's were ripping up their fine clothing and carpets to make uniforms and cold weather gear. Eventually they fled ahead of the Union Army to a shack near Macon. Rebecca later wrote this of her feelings upon leaving the home that she had built and buried the first of her children at. When I reached the gate, I picked up the springs that had been a part of my dead child's fine baby carriage. Also the arm of a large parlor mahogany chair that had also been burned. Desolation and destruction everywhere. Bitter grinding poverty, slaves all gone, money also. We certainly paid the price while we were in refugee condition. Right? So very soon she loses almost everything. The slaves aren't actually gone. She leaves behind like 15 of them to manage her farm and decater. But they're not gonna have like a lot of people around them past this point for the war years. They're kind of like actually now living like poor people, right?
Their circumstances changed immediately, right? As did a lot of very wealthy families.

**Samantha McFaye** (2:08)
Okay, so this reminds me of the scene with Scarlett O'Hara going, I'll never go hungry again.

**Robert Evans** (2:13)
I know way too much about this book and movie.
We haven't had yet at that point, but we will soon. So the fact that they moved to Macon does not protect them. The war brings disease which hits the Felton family like a machine gun. After the fall of Atlanta, a measles epidemic ravages the state and it kills her five-year-old son and six of the people that she still owned. Not long after their farm was ransacked by Confederate soldiers fleeing their defeat at the hands of General Sherman. Rebecca was enraged. She saw this as evidence of the mass failure of Southern manhood. Warriors who had been so boastful before, now looting their own people as they fled in despair. And as this is happening, there's a terrible fear building among elite white women of rape, right? At the hands of Union soldiers, at the hands of Confederate soldiers, and at the hands of newly freed or escaped slaves, right? There's a lot of the... And these panic are being stalked by the Confederate media who's saying that like, well, if the lines fail, if the Union gets here, here's what will happen to all your women, right? They are being told that too. This isn't just something that they're making up. Now, late in the war, Union soldiers occupy and raid Rebecca's Macon property. And while the Felton's get by without being subjected to any physical harm themselves, not all of the people on the farm are so lucky.
If you ask a body of soldiers to occupy an enemy farm or town or whatever, some of them are going to rape the civilians there. No military in history has ever occupied a defeated enemy and avoided this. In fact, US soldiers on bases in Japan today commit rape on locals regularly enough that it is a well-known type of news item in Okinawa, right? This happens like every year up there, sometimes more than once a year.

**Samantha McFaye** (3:52)
Like South Korea too.

**Robert Evans** (3:54)
Yeah, South Korea. It's why, again, be real careful when you put soldiers places, because this happens.
This is just a side effect.
Now, this whole of Southern womanhood recoiled at stories of wealthy plantation ladies being raped by white or black soldiers with stories true and of the latter spreading particularly rapidly. In late 1863, as Union soldiers neared Cartersville, Confederate propaganda warned civilians about widespread atrocities, particularly those that would surely be committed by black soldiers. Rebecca wrote, The conduct of the enemy has been destitute of that forbearance and magnanimity which civilization and Christianity have introduced. Clothing of women and infants is stripped from their persons. Helpless women have been exposed to the most cruel outrages and to that dishonor, which is infinitely worse than death. That's how she's referring to rape, is it's worse than death. It's like worse than murder because that's your only valuable asset as a woman.