Thanks in large part to the behind-the-scenes advice of the first female presidential advisor, Anna Ella Carroll (1815-1894), the Union Army and Navy capture Forts Henry and Donelson on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers in 1862. It is the first major victory for Union forces in the Civil War.
Anna Carroll is born in Pocomoke City to an influential family; her father is a Maryland governor. With her father’s tutelage, she becomes a nationally influential political writer and operative. She is a leader in the Know Nothing Party in the 1850s but supports the Republicans and a strong Union during the Civil War. Her important role in advising the Lincoln Administration about military strategy in the western campaigns is never officially recognized. The epitaph on her Maryland grave reads “a woman rarely gifted; an able and accomplished writer.”
