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Kate Powell Carter

1839 - 1903

BiographyDiary of Katherine Powell Carter
Katherine Powell (1839-1903), known as “Kate” and “Katey,” was born in 1839 to George Cuthbert Powell (?-1849) and Marietta Fauntleroy Turner (1812-1894). Kate, her widowed mother, and her younger sister, Virginia, known as “Ginnie,” spent much of the Civil War period at Oakley, located in Round Hill, with members of the extended family. Kate kept a wartime journal with entries for July 6, 1861 through September 8, 1862. The journal begins with Kate’s recollection of a visit with relatives in Baltimore, Maryland, in April of 1861. During that visit, Kate witnessed some of the earliest hostilities associated with the war. Subsequent entries deal largely with war-related events in Loudoun and Fauquier County. Kate describes, for example, Confederate and Union troop movements in the area, and notes in one entry “that all that could be cooked must be prepared and sent to the Plains as Jackson‘s army would be passing through there very soon.” In 1861, Kate recorded the names of friends and family members who were casualties in nearby battles and skirmishes. Kate references the need to setup hospital facilities in a number of local schools and churches and describes her involvement in making bedding, clothing, and other items for these survivors. Kate makes frequent references to the Union armies marching through the area and describes incidents of stealing and looting by some of the soldiers. On 15 October 1863, Kate Powell married George Carter II (1838-1926), of Oatlands. George had courted Kate throughout the War, and as her sister Ida wrote: “Surely if constancy (sic) and devotion should ever make a man succeed, it should in his case for five years of a young man’s life is a long time to devote hopelessly to one woman.” Following their marriage, they lived at Oakley before moving into Oatlands. Katherine Powell Carter is buried at the Sharon Cemetery in Middleburg. The image included is a photograph of a Civil War reenactment at Oatlands dated 1993 from the Mary & John Fishback Photograph Collection (VC 0016).
Source(s):
Carter, Kate. Diary of Kate Powell Carter of Oatlands. (V REF 929.2 CARTER)
Lewis-Edwards Architectural Survey of Loudoun County, 1971-1983 (M 022), Thomas Balch Library, Leesburg, VA.
Mackall, Mary L, Meserve, Stevan F. & Sasscer, Anne Mackall ed. In the Shadow of the Enemy: The Civil War Journal of Ida Powell Dulany, Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press, 2009. (973.782 DUL)
Mary & John Fishback Photgraph Collection (VC 0016), Thomas Balch Library, Leesburg, VA.
Oatlands Historic House and Gardens, History, http://www.oatlands.org/Visit-Oatlands/History (accessed 25 November 2013).
Shaw, David P. Index for the Journal of Kate Powell, Later Mrs. George Carter of Oatlands, Virginia, 2004. (V REF 929.2 CARTER)

Person TypeIndividual

Last Updated8/7/24

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