York County Civil War hero grandmom of Gore Vidal
Two Union batteries fight on Bunker Hill, overlooking the main streets of Hanover, on June 30, 1863. The Union cannons dueled with Confederate artillery units in high positions across town. The booming cannons and screeching projectiles terrorized residents hunkered in homes. The story of how the Confederate invasion of York County in 1863 enmeshed women and children has been too little told. (Drawing courtesy, York County Heritage Trust.
In my York Sunday News column, I wrote about how Mary Jane Rewalt stared down a room full of Confederate officers who were testing her loyalty.
That occurred in her Wrightsville home during the rebel invasion of 1863, and, as I outlined in my column, that exchange represented one of many dangerous encounters between rebel troops and their York County captives.
But on a national level, she is better known as author Gore Vidal's grandmother.
June Lloyd, archivist emeritus of the York County Heritage Trust, links the heroic Mrs. Rewalt with Gore Vidal:
If an Internet search is any indication, Mary Jane Magee Rewalt’s primary claim to fame is being the grandmother of prolific, and sometime controversial, writer Gore Vidal. According to several Web sites, Vidal’s father, Eugene Luther Vidal was born in 1895 in Madison, South Dakota to Felix Luther Vidal and Margaret Ann Rewalt (also known as Annie). She was the child listed in the Wrightsville 1880 census as Maggie A., age 10, daughter of Luther and Mary Jane Rewalt. Gore Vidal’s mother was Nina S. Gore, reportedly a distant cousin of Al Gore. And who says all roads don’t eventually lead back to York County?
In her York Sunday News column for April 29, June will provide more details about the woman who stood up for her country.
Jim Cobbs · December 7, 2007 12:17 PM
Mr. McClure produces a few quote from Mrs. Mary J. Rewalt
via the autobiography of General John B. Gordon. However the whole passage written some 50 years after the events shows the awesome impression she made. To Quote:
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[There] was one point especially at which my soldiers combated the fire's progress with immense energy, and with great difficulty saved an attractive home from burning. It chanced to be the home of one of the most superb women it was my fortune to meet during the four years of war. She was Mrs. L. L. Rewalt, to whom I refer in my lecture, " The Last Days of the Confederacy," as the heroine of the Susquehanna. I met Mrs. Rewalt the morning after the fire had been checked. She had witnessed the furious combat with the flames around her home, and was unwilling that those men should depart without receiving some token of appreciation from her. She was not wealthy, and could not entertain my whole command, but she was blessed with an abundance of those far nobler riches of brain and heart which are the essential glories of exalted womanhood. Accompanied by an attendant, and at a late hour of the night, she sought me, in the confusion which followed the destructive fire, to express her gratitude to the soldiers of my command and to inquire how long we would remain in Wrightsville. On learning that the village would be relieved of our presence at an early hour the following morning, she insisted that I should bring with me to breakfast at her house as many as could find places in her dining-room. She would take no excuse, not even the nervous condition in which the excitement of the previous hours had left her. At a bountifully supplied table in the early morning sat this modest, cultured woman, surrounded by soldiers in their worn, gray uniforms. The welcome she gave us was so gracious, she was so self-possessed, so calm and kind, that I found myself in an inquiring state of mind as to whether her sympathies were with the Northern or Southern side in the pending war. Cautiously, but with sufficient clearness to indicate to her my object, I ventured some remarks which she could not well ignore and which she instantly saw were intended to evoke some declaration upon the subject. She was too brave to evade it, too self-poised to be confused by it, and too firmly fixed in her convictions to hesitate as to the answer. With no one present except Confederate soldiers who were her guests, she replied, without a quiver in her voice, but with womanly gentleness: " General Gordon, I fully comprehend you, and it is due to myself that I candidly tell you that I am a Union woman. I cannot afford to be misunderstood, nor to have you misinterpret this simple courtesy. You and your soldiers last night saved my home from burning, and I was unwilling that you should go away without receiving some token of my appreciation. I must tell you' however, that, with my assent and approval, my husband is a soldier in the Union army, and my constant prayer to Heaven is that our cause may triumph and the Union be saved."
No Confederate left that room without a feeling of profound respect, of unqualified admiration, for that brave and worthy woman. No Southern soldier, no true Southern man, who reads this account will fail to render to her a like tribute of appreciation. The spirit of every high-souled Southerner was made to thrill over and over again at the evidence around him of the more than Spartan courage, the self-sacrifices and devotion, of Southern women, at every stage and through every trial of the war, as from first to last, they hurried to the front, their brothers and fathers, their husbands and sons. No Southern man can ever forget the words of cheer that came from these heroic women's lips, and their encouragement to hope and fight on in the midst of despair. When I met Mrs. Rewalt in Wrightsville, the parting with my own mother was still fresh in my memory. Nothing short of death's hand can ever obliterate from my heart the impression of that parting. Holding me in her arms, her heart almost bursting with anguish, and the tears running down her cheeks, she asked God to take care of me, and then said: " Go, my son; I shall perhaps never see you again, but I commit you freely to the service of your country." I had witnessed, as all Southern soldiers had witnessed, the ever-increasing consecration of those women to their cause. No language can fitly describe their saintly spirit of martyrdom, which grew stronger and rose higher when all other eyes could see the inevitable end of the terrific struggle slowly but surely approaching.
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Wow!
tracy · March 8, 2008 8:43 PM
just came upon this.. i am a rewalt related to this woman. thank you for posting it.
Jim McClure · March 12, 2008 6:35 PM
Tracy, if you have any family information on Mrs. Rewalt, send it our way. June did a good job in this post telling what is known. But Mrs. Rewalt is a fascinating woman who we need to know more about.
Jim McClure