PRESIDING DIVINITIES: IDEAL SCULPTURE IN ... - Indiana University

Graver still for Acklen was the reaction of her Southern neighbors to her and her
husband’s actions during the war, which preserved much of their wealth. When
Tennessee seceded from the Union in June, 1861 the Acklens took a firm Confederate
stand. They donated $30,000 to the Confederacy and Adelicia joined the Ladies’ Soldiers
Friend Society. On the eve of Nashville’s occupation by Union forces in February, 1862,
Joseph fled (at Adelicia’s urging) to the Acklens’ cotton plantations in Louisiana. Several
months later, after Union troops captured New Orleans and Baton Rouge and began
moving up the Mississippi River, he found himself pinned between opposing Union and
Confederate lines. Fearful that Confederate soldiers would burn his cotton to prevent its
falling into enemy hands, he appealed to Union officers. Although Acklen refused overt
Federal protection (no doubt fearing reprisal), Lieutenant R. B. Lowry of the U. S. Navy
reported that he renounced his oath of allegiance to the Confederacy and provided useful
information on Confederate naval operations near his land. 14 Acklen, who had but
recently been an outspoken and published advocate of slavery, wrote to his wife, “I am
done with nigger labour. I never had much fancy for it as you know but now I am fully
satisfied. I have suffered all kinds of deprivations and been subjected to all kinds of lies
and slanders that malice could invent.” 15 Joseph may have intended this letter to be
14 Ibid., 15.
15 Letter from Joseph Acklen, Angola Plantation, Louisiana to Adelicia Acklen, 20
August 1863, copy in Belmont Mansion Curatorial Files of original in Manuscripts
Section, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University. According to the Acklens’
son, William Hayes Ackland, Joseph “was desirous of showing the world the better side
of slavery in an ideal plantation life.” See Kiser, “Scion of Belmont, Part I,” 43. Joseph
Acklen published a two-part article in which he attempted to do just that. See Joesph
Acklen, “Rules and Management of a Southern Estate,” Debow’s Review, 21 (December
1856): 617-620 and 22 (April 1857): 376-381. This article was later cited by various
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