Despite it being early morning, a line had already formed. They had gotten off the boat wobbly, still trying to get their land legs back since they had traveled all the way from England. Moving slowly, a mother holding the hand of her young daughter whispered again to her. Moving forward at the command of a union soldier, the young girl looked down, gripping her doll tightly to her chest. Looking up through her eyelashes at her mother as she talked to the man in a blue uniform, she tightened her hand in her mother’s. Another man in blue looked at the young girl smiling, saying to her what a cute doll she had, moving to touch it. The young girl moved behind her mother’s dress remembering her mother’s words whispered to her early in the line. “Don’t let anyone touch your doll.” The man who was talking to her mother yelled at the other for scaring the young girl and apologized to both of them, ushering them forward across the blockade. During the Civil War, the Union blockade hindered the passing of crucial supplies to the Confederate side. Many blockade runners were women and even young girls. Through the use of such people, the Confederates had spark creative ways of smuggling supplies over the blockade. In fact, dolls similar to this girl’s doll was used to smuggle anesthesia drugs through the Confederate lines.
A simple doll made of papier-mâché helped smuggled contraband across enemy lines with the help of a young girl, the niece of Confederate Major General James Patton Anderson. During the start of the Civil War, the South had been winning the war against the North. As the war began, a plan was introduced from the Union. This plan was known as the Anaconda plan. This plan attempted to surround the South and starve their supplies until the South had had enough. The North had a production economy and the South was mainly made up of plantations that produced cotton; the South lacked most of the industrial production that the North produced in abundance. This greatly hurt the South because, as mention before, the North introduced the Anaconda Plan, cutting the South’s access to all kinds of supplies, including anesthetics very much needed by the Confederate medical corps, which became limited and scarce. The need for anesthetics increased for the South.1 The necessity led to creative means, such as this example of using dolls to smuggle these drugs within them to the South.
Dolls named Nina and Lucy Ann are suspected to have been used to smuggle drugs used for anesthetic purposes across the North’s blockade. The South needed these supplies so desperately that dolls were used to carry them across. The Virginia Commonwealth University Heath System Radiology Department has taken X-rays of both dolls and discovered their heads to be hallowed out papier-mâché heads.2 This finding though could not prove that the dolls did, in fact, smuggle contraband across the blockade because many of the dolls during that time period had papier-mâché heads. Further analysis by the United Federation of Doll Clubs (UFDC) concludes that the probability of the dolls being used for smuggling was very high because of evidence such as Nina’s head being secured by clips instead of it being sewed to the body. This evidence suggests that it allowed for things hidden inside that could be easily accessed. More evidence came from Lucy Ann, which had a gash on the back of her head, which was most likely used to get access to items likely contained inside her head. With this conclusion, the museum of the UFDC has stated that it is highly likely that these dolls were used to smuggle some kind of contraband during the Civil War.
The young girl held her doll safely to her chest, whispering reassurance to herself and to the doll. Once the mother had led her daughter to the edge of a clearing of grass near some of the trees across the field, a man in gray was standing there waiting. He ran across the field with such speed that once he had got across, he was out of breath, trying to express his thanks, causing the little girl to giggle at the man’s antics. The mother gently pushed her daughter forward. The young girl looked up at the man; she then kissed the doll’s forehead, and holding her in both hands, she lifted her up, giving the doll to the man. The man took the doll with great care, smiling gently to the young girl. Waving goodbye to her doll and the man, the young girl and her mother watched as he ran as fast as a rabbit across the clearing with the doll’s long curly brown hair swaying in the wind. The North’s blockade had made many of the supplies that the South needed very limited, but that only led to creative ways to circumvent the blockade, such as the use of dolls to smuggle important items across such blockades. The Confederates were desperate for such supplies and the use of dolls was a very good way to smuggle things across. With Nina and Lucy Ann being two such dolls, we now know more about how the South reacted to the blockade during the Civil War.
100 comments
Mariana Govea
Great introduction and overall article! What an interesting read! It has always been really interesting to me to learn about cartels and what drives a cartel to do what they do! And this article does a great job at explaining exactly what they did and how they did it! Its so crazy to know the extremities all these cartels take into hand in order to accomplish what they want!An its even more interesting to know that this is something that not only happened in the past but till this day it still continues to happen so I believe its great for us to have this type of knowledge since it helps us understand a little bit more of why we still se it today and how its being done today!
Lianna Ybarra
Awesome job with this! I thought this piece was so interesting how even when the Civil War was going on, drugs and other types of illegal items were being smuggled into different areas just like today. It has always seemed to be a problem that has just evolved from one generation to the next. I thought it was interesting and clever to put it in the dolls because at the time why would someone take a doll away from a little girl?
Nataly Solis Chavez
Great read! You did a very well job when writing the introduction and wrapping it all up with the conclusion. It amazes me to see to what extent people will go to to smuggle drugs. Even today you hear on the news of various cases where people will go so far as to smuggle drugs inside of others or themselves. It saddened me to read about how such a young girl was brought into the Civil War but all in all it was a very well written article.
Teresa Valdez
This article has a very compelling voice, which made for a narrative that made me feel like I was taking part in the action. This article uses the evidence that dolls were used as contraband very well. The South seems like it had a knack for creativity in going around the blockade, clipping the doll heads on instead of sewing them.
Marissa Gonzalez
Great job with the introduction and closing to this article. It is very well written! It is very interesting how desperate people are for drugs that they have to come up with ideas like this to smuggle them. It is not a bad idea because a doll and a child are innocent and no one would suspect them to smuggle any drugs. However, I am curious to how long this was taking place. The way this is written kept me very engaged. Great job!
Zaraly Frasquillo Bejarano
Isn’t crazy how even now drug cartels go to extreme measures to transport their “goods” from one place to another? Back then it was by hiding it in a little girls doll and now it can be by actually opening up a human body and placing it inside it. I think it is even crazier how mothers or fathers would put their children in such a dangerous situation, for what? Great article, I love your writing style, it kept me engaged!
Aimee Trevino
I really enjoyed the way this was written as a story! I had heard of people having to smuggle things between the North and the South, but had never heard of dolls being used. Crazy how they used little girls. I guess this could parallel to drug cartels from Colombia using pregnant women, so as to not cause suspicion. Great work.
Ana Gonzalez
What an interesting article! The South was very clever in smuggling drugs through dolls because who would ever think that an innocent child would be the one carrying drugs? The dolls demonstrate that the North was not as successful in its blockade as planned and that the South was not going to give in. I like the anecdote in your article because it hints at how terrified children and women were when they had to smuggle drugs and supplies to the South.
Christian Lozano
Very well written, this article does a good job at explaining the smuggling of supplies through dolls during the Civil War. Something for which I did not know prior to this Article. Sad, but seemingly necessary as war has a tendency to create such things.
Maalik Stansbury
Honestly. I wondered who would come up with this and why was this a method as to smuggle and transport anything over and across places. But thinking about it and reading as to how and why they did so made since. This was a small compactable thing that tot eh naked eye doesn’t look like anything but a toy for a girl, so it makes sense as to why no one would expect it. Great job with the detail of how it came to be and keeping me on the edge of my seat.