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The life story of Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, a Confederate woman who lost everything and turned to white supremacy.
- Early Life
- Civil War and Reconstruction
- Later Life
Ella Gertrude Clanton, known as Gertrude, was born in 1834 just outside Augusta in Columbia County to Mary Luke and Turner Clanton. Her father, a Virginia transplant, had established a new life in Georgia as a prominent planter and member of the state legislature. As one of the wealthiest planters in the state (his estate in 1864 was valued at an i...
Thomas was still a young woman in 1861 at the outbreak of the Civil War, which permanently erased privilege and comfort from her life. Although she was a passionate Confederate nationalist at the onset of the war, she soon concluded that the South did not have a viable chance of victory. Nonetheless, she remained loyal to the Confederacy. She direc...
Despite the downturn in her economic status, Thomas spent the latter years of her life involved in numerous civic and social organizations. Beginning in the mid-1880s and continuing until her death, Thomas undertook leadership positions in the Ladies’ Missionary Society of St. John’s Methodist Church in Augusta, the Hayne Circle literary society, t...
Gert Thomas is known for The Dumping Ground (2013), Casualty (1986) and Deception (2013).
- Gert Thomas
Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas (1834-1907), known as Gertrude, had been a slave mistress in Georgia before and during the Civil War. She confided her thoughts on Confederate defeat and emancipation to her diary in the immediate aftermath of the war.
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Thomas, who was born to wealth and privilege and reared in the tradition of the southern belle, tells of the hard days of war and the poverty brought on by emancipation and Reconstruction. Her entries illuminate experiences shared with thousands of other southern women.
Mar 1, 1990 · Ella Gertrude Clanton Thomas, the daughter and wife of Augusta planters, is best known for the extensive journal she kept of her life before, during, and after the Civil War (1861-65).
