This is the story of the marriage between Union General Smith D. Atkins and Ella Swain — the daughter of former NC Gov. and enslaver David L. Swain. The improbable story of this controversial courtship persists as a testament to love at first sight. A special thanks to Ernest Dollar of the City of Raleigh Museum for sharing this story with RALtoday.
Atkins was a Union general of the 92nd Mounted Illinois Infantry and trooped through the South in the 1864 Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea. As Raleigh was about to be flooded with Union soldiers, former NC Gov. David L. Swain rushed to speak with the sitting governor about the potential destruction of Raleigh + UNC, which he was acting president of.
David L. Swain, among others convinced Sherman to spare the capital and university with a surrender. After battles across central NC, a portion of the Army, including Atkins, split to go to Chapel Hill to negotiate the terms of occupation with David L. Swain.
When Atkins first arrived at the Swain home in Chapel Hill to negotiate, David L. Swain’s daughter Ella Swain was enraged at the thought of a Yankee general at her home after she had heard stories of Union soldiers across the South, according to Dollar.
As David L. Swain and Atkins talked, he asked Ella to retrieve a book about General Cornwallis’ occupation of Chapel Hill during the Revolutionary War. Being hospitable, Ella reluctantly grabbed the book for him, took one look at Atkins, and instantly fell in love.
After the occupation of Chapel Hill, Atkins returned to marry Swain. Their courtship was quite controversial, and Swain’s mother allegedly wouldn’t sit at the same table as Atkins. The two moved to Freeport, Illinois — Atkins’ hometown — and when Swain died of influenza at 38, she was buried in Historic Oakwood Cemetery alongside her father. Atkins was buried in Freeport.
To learn more about Swain and Atkins’ “impossible courtship,” read “Undaunted Heart: The True Story of a Southern Belle & a Yankee General” by Suzy Baril, the two’s great-great-granddaughter.
