Adeline Shirley
Adeline Adelia Quincy was born to parents Abraham and Elizabeth Quincy sometime in 1811 in Boston, Massachusetts. Adeline was the grandniece of founding father John Hancock, through her father who was the son of Henry Quincy, a sibling of Hancock’s wife, Dorothy. Adeline had two siblings, although her brother died only two years after she was born. It is likely that Adeline attended public school in Boston since she was recognized as a “Boston medal scholar,” which was awarded to six students at each school. Little else is known about Adeline’s childhood.
At some point, Adeline moved to Vicksburg, Mississippi and became a governess for the Pryor family. It was there that she met her husband, James Shirley, who was paying the family a visit. Like Adeline, James Shirley, who came from Goffstown, New Hampshire, was a northerner. He graduated with a Dartmouth College law degree in 1818, then practiced law in Albany, New York. He took on a role in Augusta, Georgia, as the head of an academy. There, he met his first wife, Harriet Wadsworth. Unfortunately, Harriet died in 1825 during childbirth or shortly after, leaving James Shirley to rear their newborn alone. He moved to Alabama and next settled in Vicksburg, Mississippi, to continue his law practice. James Shirley and Adeline Quincy married on April 13, 1834.
Adeline and Shirley set up their household on the northeastern edge of Vicksburg near Cedar Hill Cemetery. There they had four children – Frederick (b. 1836), Alice Eugenia (b. 1844), and Robert Quincy (b. 1848). Their second child died in infancy. With the increasing occurrence of yellow fever outbreaks in town, the family sought to relocate to an area where the spread of the disease was less significant. They purchased a home two miles outside of Vicksburg called “Wexford Lodge” in 1851. James Shirley, in addition to being a lawyer, worked in real estate and sold produce. According to the 1860 Federal Census, Shirley’s real estate valued at $5000, while his personal estate was worth over $25,000; this value included more than 25 enslaved people.
Though the Shirleys embraced the institution of slavery, their roots were northern. This was true of many Vicksburg citizens who had moved south looking for wealth through the cotton trade. James Shirley, however, was not shy about his unionist views. As tensions rose in the South and the Civil War became imminent, the family wanted the Union to remain intact, and the community shunned them. Their oldest son, Frederick, was so outspoken in favor of the Union that some threatened to hang him; he was sent to Indiana for his safety.
Two years into the Civil War, the fighting reached Vicksburg, noted as a “key” target for the Union. On May 18, 1863, Union and Confederate troops began fighting at the Shirleys doorstep with Wexford Lodge situated directly between the two opposing lines. James was away from the home, trying to retrieve their daughter from school in Clinton, Mississippi, forty miles away. Adeline, Robert, and their slaves remained. As Confederates retreated, they burned the buildings on the property to prevent the Union Army from sheltering in them. The soldier on his way to burn the Shirleys’ house was shot before he could set it alight. Alice recounted her mother’s experience in her diary:
My mother and the old home were greeted with a shower of bullets and shell from the advancing army. One shot passed her as she stood in an open doorway…War, terrible war, had come to our very hearthstone, and here my mother and brother remained for three days. The two house servants stayed by them. Household treasures were soon destroyed under the ruthless hand of the soldier…She and the two house servants sat most of the time in the chimney corner, where the bullets might not strike them.
Eventually, for their safety, Adeline and Robert were moved out of the house into a cave dwelling that their slaves dug into a hillside. A trunk and rocking chair had been moved into the cave with a blanket at its entrance to act as a door. There was no bed for sleeping. Adeline and Robert lived there for days before James returned from Clinton. Though Robert spent most of his time in the trenches with the Union Army. Adeline and James quickly fell sick living in the poor conditions. The Shirleys eventually moved to another plantation further away from the fighting, but the owners lodged them in their slave quarters as they disagreed with their Unionist views.
After 47 days, the Confederate Army surrendered on July 4, 1863, and Adeline’s life had been overturned. The home was a “wreck,” and their property had been taken or destroyed. Just three weeks later, her husband suddenly died. With nothing left in Vicksburg, Adeline and her family left. She moved to Ohio with Alice and Alice’s new husband, Union Colonel John Eaton. Robert attended West Point, but he dropped out in 1868. For a time, the army used the house near Vicksburg as a smallpox hospital, but it was ultimately abandoned in 1864.
In 1867, Adeline sought compensation for Wexford Lodge’s destruction from the U.S. War Department. To bolster her claim, she wrote to General Ulysses S. Grant, whom she had become acquainted with during the Siege, requesting he send a letter affirming her loyalty to the Union and supporting her submission. He did send a letter, but because Wexford Lodge was in a state recently in rebellion, the claim was denied. The Shirleys’ allegiance to the Union was disregarded.
Adeline became ill in March 1888 and died at age 77. She was initially buried with James Shirley in Cedar Hill Cemetery in Vicksburg, near their first home. Wexford Lodge remained in disrepair until the formation of Vicksburg National Military Park.
Her daughter Alice negotiated the sale of the property to the Federal government along with compensation for property damages she felt her mother had been owed. Finally, Alice had her parents reburied behind Wexford Lodge. Today the home is known as “Shirley House.”
