A Thorough Lady: Ellen Call Long

History is made of many things: great ideas, great movements, great moments.  It’s also filled with interesting people.  Not all of them are famous, or maybe they are ‘notable’ only on a small scale, in their communities.  Yet it is often these people who serve as examples of the forces of their age.  Allow me to introduce one such woman.

Her name was Ellen Call Long.  Born in Tallahassee in 1825, she was the daughter of Richard Keith Call and Mary Kirkland.  Her parents’ matchmaker was none other than Andrew Jackson.  Richard Keith Call became a territorial governor of Florida, and Ellen was raised among the “republican sovereigns” of antebellum politics.  In 1844 Ellen married Medicus A. Long, a promising young attorney.  The couple had five children, but three succumbed to disease in early childhood.  Political quarrels between father and son-in-law made for an uncomfortable family situation, and in 1859 Medicus departed for Texas, never to return.  Ellen Call Long was left as a single mother in an age when such a status would have caused gossip and possible ostracism.  Fortunately for Ellen, her father’s fame and prosperity protected her, and she refused to go into social retirement.  The most interesting part of her life was just beginning.

The Civil War period found Ellen managing her father’s estate, the Grove, and working tirelessly in fundraising for the Confederate cause.  Yet Ellen remained, like her father, a dedicated Unionist; friends noted her “occasional bitterness” on the subject of secession.  She was caught in an emotional tug of war. She was a Floridian and a southerner by birth, with a deep love of her region.  Yet she had also absorbed her family’s Jacksonian principles, which made disunion an anathema.  Her son enlisted in the Confederate army, but Ellen’s heart remained with the Union, and in the privacy of her diary she rebuked the South and its leaders.  A woman at the zenith of Tallahassee Confederate society, she could never completely disavow her Union heritage.

Photo from the State Archives of Florida

Following the war, Ellen found herself in dire financial straits.  Not only had her father died, but her extended family became dependent on her.  Ellen used her strengths, including a sound education and extensive social and political connections, to make ends meet.  She wrote books and articles, including scientific works on silk farming and the necessity of periodic burning for pine tree cultivation.  She also published a novel, Florida Breezes, that was a thinly veiled tell-all of life in Tallahassee during the war.  Unfortunately, Ellen’s pen alone could not provide an adequate living for her dependents, and she was forced to sell off large amounts of property and even treasured family heirlooms.  Ellen died at the Grove in 1905.

Ellen’s story would be interesting for her accomplishments alone---but a deeper and more intriguing tale is found in her psyche.  She was raised a southern belle, elite and privileged, surrounded by slaves.  Her diary entries reveal the typical racism of the time, and she was offended when freedmen refused to show deference.  Yet in 1882, she refused to accept the position of Tallahassee postmaster (a lucrative appointment) because it would have meant the removal of William G. Stewart, the African-American man who held the job.  Risking public censure, she argued that Stewart was more qualified for the post and that his race was irrelevant.  Something had changed for Ellen Call Long---perhaps going through the trials of war and economic hardship helped her learn to respect a man who had “proved himself worthy morally and capable intellectually of the rewards of citizenship.”  She would not use her political connections to seize his livelihood. Ellen’s stance demonstrated astonishing personal growth, and her application of “republican principles” shocked her prejudiced society.  Her story, in a small way, offers hope that humanity is capable of positive change.

Ellen Call Long was representative of frontier Florida, Civil War Florida, and Reconstruction-era Florida.  She was a Unionist in a Confederate town, a popular hostess who flaunted social rules, and a prominent spokesperson for her beloved state.  Her life was complicated, just like the times in which she lived.  She may have been famous only in a small place, but her story helps us see the bigger picture of history.




If you'd like to learn more about Ellen Call Long, my article, "Ellen Call Long, 1825-1905: A Thorough Lady" appears in Larry Eugene Rivers and Canter Brown, Jr., eds., The Varieties of Women's Experiences: Portraits of Southern Women in the Post-Civil War Century (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2009).