Historian Brings New Life to Atlanta Civil War Author
After 20 years of sporadic research interrupted by teaching and administrative duties, Tom Dyer has illuminated a portion of Atlanta's history that had been "enshrouded in Lost Cause mythology."
Secret Yankees: The Union Circle in Confederate Atlanta had its start when Dyer, University Professor and interim associate vice president for academic affairs, set out to identify the author of a diary fragment purchased in 1976 by the University Libraries. Written by a woman, the diary details the lives of Unionists cautiously living in Atlanta during the months leading up to the decisive Battle of Atlanta in the summer of 1864. Johns Hopkins University Press will publish Dyer's book this spring; it will be a featured selection of the History Book Club.
In addition to identifying Cyrena Bailey Stone, originally of Vermont, as the diary's author, Dyer has methodically traced her life and that of her husband, Amherst, and of their acquaintances who lived amongst the enemy.
"These people have been systematically excluded from Atlanta's history and enshrouded by the Lost Cause mythology," Dyer says. "They don't fit. Popular understanding doesn't allow for dissent."
The Unionists were obliged to keep their sentiments under wraps as they went about their lives, and Cyrena Stone concealed their identities in her diary, referring to herself as Miss Abby. The sole clue to her identity was the only non-Georgia place name mentioned in the 80-page diary fragment--the battlefield at Ticonderoga.
Using an assortment of records--including court and census records, tax digests, slave censuses and newspaper accounts--Dyer paints a dramatic picture of the lives of the Stones and the small but significant minority of fellow Unionists living in Confederate Atlanta.
"To Tom's credit, it's not just identifying her and her husband, it's reconstructing this entire Unionist community in Atlanta," says John Inscoe, history professor and editor of the Georgia Historical Quarterly, which published an earlier article by Dyer on the research. "In many ways, it's a community study of a completely lost community."
Secret Yankees places Dyer on the cusp of trends in Civil War history, focusing on Unionists in the South. Dyer also has an essay on Unionists in a collection being edited by Inscoe.
"I grew up in a family with a terrific emphasis on history. My father's family was Confederate, and my mother's was Union. We had a lot of interesting family discussions," Dyer says. "I'm interested in people whose views are askew from the dominant majority."
Her fervent patriotism in a city Dyer thought to be resolutely Confederate sparked his fascination with "Miss Abby."
"I didn't see how someone could have survived in that climate. At that time, my view of Confederate Atlanta was derived from celluloid and fiction," Dyer says. "The idea that there was a significant Union minority was new to me and that really interested me. I found that some of the wealthiest, some of the most powerful people in Atlanta were Unionists."
Beyond the intriguing story, the book examines the nature of loyalty.
"It's a story, first and foremost, but it's also about loyalty and what loyalty is, particularly in times of profound human stress," Dyer says.
"That is one thing Tom does well with this book: he spent a lot of time thinking about the nature of loyalty and patriotism--what it means to be a nation and what it means when a nation is jerked out from under you," Inscoe says. "That's what a good historian does. He takes a good story and makes it meaningful, interprets it and speaks to bigger issues."
F.N. Boney, history professor emeritus at UGA and a scholar of the Confederacy, calls Dyer's work "a first-rate study. "It is fascinating on two levels," Boney says. "Cyrena and Amherst Stone are complex, real-life characters caught in the chaos of Atlanta."
Dyer's detective work has revealed some engrossing characters among the Unionists--including a widowed seamstress who helped a Union spy move in and out of the city by furnishing him with dresses and gray jeans.
"There were spies coming in and out of Atlanta that no one knew about before. I've been able to identify some of them," Dyer says. "Confederates have been portrayed as paranoid about there being spies in their midst. The paranoia was justified."
"Anytime a researcher identifies the unknown writer of a diary or letter we are delighted, because it opens up other doors leading to complete knowledge of a historic event or person," says Mary Ellen Brooks, head of the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library. "Miss Abby's unique perspective--being an outsider--makes her observations take on a more objective tone."
In tracking down Miss Abby's identity, Dyer learned of a novel about the Battle of Atlanta written by Stone's half-sister. When he located the novel, he quickly realized it was based on the life of Cyrena Stone and included large chunks of the diary.
"I've made an extensive effort over several years to locate the complete diary, but I have not been able to find it," Dyer says. "Nevertheless, by careful analysis of the texts of both novel and diary and the use of many other documentary sources, I have been able to judge where fiction ceases, fact ensues, and a heretofore invisible segment of life in Civil War Atlanta comes to light."
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