Family ties and the use of relatives as support systems played major roles in Eunice Connolly’s early life in the North both before and after her stay in Mobile, Alabama. Economic factors such as the Market Revolution strongly influenced the ways in which relatives organized their homes, sought out employment and moved between different locations. But The Sea Captain’s Wife provides information about the emotional strains put on family members by the Civil War as well; one may gather as much by reading Eunice’s lonely, forlorn letters back to the North from her home in Mobile. In examining these messages and analyzing Martha Hodes’ text, however, we also learn that Eunice did not simply rely on her first husband for support during her time in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Mobile, but utilized extended familial networks in order to sustain herself and her young child. Her plight suggests that the Civil War, despite tearing families apart through drafts, disease and death, also forced distant relatives together in unlikely relationships. In Eunice’s case, we see a microcosm of the ways in which the Civil War both impeded the ability of families in the North and South to function normatively, as well as the ways in which the concept of “close family” became stretched as well.

    A husband’s decision to fight for the Confederates and a failure to find comfort with life in Mobile prompted a pregnant Eunice to risk a move back to New England. In doing so, she effectively gave up on the domestic sphere and the relative safety that it offered—at least theoretically. As Martha Hodes states, “According to Christian doctrine and Anglo-American law alike, a wife enjoyed the privilege of dependence on her husband: She served, he provided and protected” (50). William’s actions ruptured the makeup of the familial sphere, as similar occurrences likely did for countless other families on either side of the war. Hodes does not offer any specific reason for William’s enlistment, stating, “Maybe William enlisted simply because he had no work and the local army offered steady pay, or maybe he joined in an attempt to smooth the way for his own advancement in Mobile when the war ended” (114). She suggests that, whatever the ultimate reason for William’s departure, the base cause likely involved long-term financial improvement. But unlike lifelong residents of the South, various letters show that Eunice’s inability to adjust to life in Mobile made the absence much worse. Although there are certainly instances of women organizing and taking on more male-oriented roles in the absence of their husbands, Eunice’s example portrays a different scenario; that the failure to become self-sufficient caused women to search for alternate—and oftentimes limited—solutions. While her husband perhaps sought to better their condition on both personal and societal levels, he ultimately forced a melancholic Eunice to risk her pregnant child in a journey to unite with other family members.

    In opting to enlist—voluntarily or otherwise—William’s departure complicated the lives of families hundreds of miles away and generated a troubling situation for Eunice. As Hodes emphasizes, “William had disappointed his wife as patriarch and provider. Now Eunice chartered her own course in the newly important realm of national politics” (113). Eunice arrived at the home of Williams’ relatives in Claremont in a period when work was sporadic and often yielded more uncertainty than tangible gain. Her own writing reflects the burden that she knew she brought on extended family when she ended her arduous travel in New England. She states, “Margaret says it was all right that I should do as I did, or I never could have kept up” (122). Although Eunice knew without doubt that she had to leave Mobile, her writing suggests that she still faced a somewhat uncertain destiny in the months leading up to her departure. She corresponded intermittently with those in New England, yet sending a letter North during the Civil War never guaranteed the ultimate arrival of the correspondence. Letters were opened, scanned for possible espionage, delivered to improper addresses and lost. And although it is unclear whether or not Eunice’s statement came before or after her departure, but the letter reveals that Eunice, although acting of her own accord, remained dependant on other sources for her wellbeing. In her separation from home, Eunice was at once a husbandless woman with a child, as well as a burden to those who took her in.

    Returning from Alabama, Eunice literally took refuge in the home of her husband’s relatives. As Hodes states, “Eunice’s mother was getting too old to take in another family, and Ann already ran a large household of her own” (122). That her immediate family either rejected or could not support her suggests that even the addition of a single woman and her child caused a massive strain on families in the 1860s. In particular, the ability to find sedentary, long-term work attributed to the hardship that made Eunice so reluctant to seek room and board at the residence of a relative. While she and William were forced to board at her parent’s home as newlyweds, her situation upon returning Claremont added another mouth to feed without the accompanying benefit of a male artisan. In addition, Hodes uses words like “shelter” and “burden” in her writing to illustrate just how precarious the situation was for Eunice—by all accounts a destitute refugee from the South (122). She does not return to New Hampshire to establish a home for herself and her children, but is instead taken in by extended family sympathetic to her plight. Additionally, she arrives in a general location where she suffered economic hardship before moving to Mobile, this time pregnant and with a young child. Her belongings, in particular, were scarce; upon receiving her trunk, she states, “There was but little in it, but what there was, was of value to me” (122). Despite moving toward extended family, Eunice’s financial situation did not immediately improve. While she had escaped unhappiness in Mobile, she found herself consciously occupying a domestic sphere that was not her own, relying on others for survival.

    Although Eunice’s story details one particular New England woman’s life throughout many events in the 1800s, it informs us about an interesting effect of the Civil War on families. Her return reveals the ways in which relatives during the wartime dealt with the coming and going of kin as a result of conflict. While the Market Revolution caused families to alter their locations and living conditions in order to gain steady labor, the Civil War further tested their ability to adapt to the addition and subtraction of family members. In a sense, the usage of the extended family took on a different meaning; Eunice likely wouldn’t rely on William’s immediate family for support if she could at all avoid it, but the absence of a male figure in her Alabama residence proved a decisive reason for seeking out help in New England.