About

About the UDC

The United Daughters of the Confederacy is the outgrowth of many local memorial, monument, and Confederate home associations and auxiliaries to camps of United Confederate Veterans that were organized after the War Between the States. It is the oldest patriotic organization in our country because of its connection with two statewide organizations that came into existence as early as 1890 — the Daughters of the Confederacy (DOC) in Missouri and the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the Confederate Soldiers Home in Tennessee.

The National Association of the Daughters of the Confederacy was organized in Nashville, Tennessee on September 10, 1894, by founders Mrs. Caroline Meriwether Goodlett of Nashville and Mrs. Anna Davenport Raines of Georgia. At its second meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1895, the Organization changed its name to the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The United Daughters of the Confederacy was incorporated under the laws of the District of Columbia on July 18, 1919.

The objects of the organization are Historical, Educational, Benevolent, Memorial and Patriotic:

• To collect and preserve the material necessary for a truthful history of the War Between the States and to protect, preserve, and mark the places made historic by Confederate valor
• To assist descendants of worthy Confederates in securing a proper education
• To fulfill the sacred duty of benevolence toward the survivor of the War and those dependent upon them
• To honor the memory of those who served and those who fell in the service of the Confederate States of America
• To record the part played during the War by Southern women, including their patient endurance of hardship, their patriotic devotion during the struggle, and their untiring efforts during the post-War reconstruction of the South
• To cherish the ties of friendship among the members of the Organization

About the Tennessee Division

Caroline Meriwether Goodlett was born November 3, 1833 to Charles Nicolas and Caroline Barker Mertiwether at the Meriweather family home “Woodstock” in Kentucky, just over the Tennessee line.

Caroline married John Studevant of Christian County, Kentucky on December 3, 1853. The couple had one child, Charles James Studevant, but eventually the couple would separate.

Caroline’s brother, Edward, enlisted at the start of the War but was killed on December 28, 1861 at Sacramento, Kentucky. Caroline put all of her time and energy to aid the South. The large tobacco barns on her family farm were used as a meeting place where women of the community would sew, knit, and make bandages and clothing for the soldiers. She also took in wounded soldiers into her home until they could be moved to a hospital, and would often travel horseback to carry medicine and supplies through Union lines.

Caroline obtained a divorce after the War and moved with her son to Nashville, Tennessee. She continued her benevolent work with various Confederate veterans’ organizations. In 1866, the Benevolent Society raised funds for artificial limbs for Confederate veterans. She was instrumental in establishing the first old soldiers home in Nashville and in the state deeding part of the Hermitage tract for a home for Confederate veterans.

The Confederate women of Nashville organized a Memorial Association in 1870 and buried Confederate veterans in a lot they purchased in Mount Olivet Cemetery. Caroline was a charter member of the Board of the Confederate Monumental Association that erected a monument over the Confederate soldiers buried in the circle.

Caroline married Colonel Michael Campbell Goodlett in 1869, and the couple had one child, Caroline Barker Goodlett.

In 1890, “The Auxiliary of the Confederate Soldiers’ Home” was organized in Tennessee and Mrs. Goodlett was elected President. The Auxiliary’s aims were benevolent and social; it helped support the Confederate Soldiers home in Davidson County, Tennessee, and tried to help the widows, wives and children of the Confederate veterans. Gradually, the Auxiliary began to operate as “Daughters of the Confederacy,” and on May 10, 1892, the following notice appeared in the Nashville American newspaper: “At a meeting of the Ladies Auxiliary of the Confederate Home yesterday, it was decided to change the name to ‘Daughters of the Confederacy.”‘ The names of the various officers were listed with Mrs. Goodlett as the State President.

The National Daughters of the Confederacy was organized on September 10, 1894, and Mrs. Goodlett was elected its first President. When the Tennessee Division was organized on January 28, 1896, Mrs. Goodlett was elected its first president and served two years.

In 1905, the title of “Founder” of the United Daughters of the Confederacy was conferred upon Mrs. Goodlett at the General Convention in San Francisco, California. In her declining years, members of Nashville Chapter 1, to which she belonged, came to see her after every meeting with a full report not only on the Chapter but on the Organization in general.

Mrs. Goodlett died on October 16, 1914. She is buried in the family lot in Mount Olivet Cemetery, Nashville, Tennessee, near the Confederate Circle where 1,492 Confederate Soldiers rest. One month after her death a letter she had written to be read at the General Convention in Savannah, Georgia appeared in the Nashville Tennessean and read in part:

“It is my earnest prayer that it (United Daughters of the Confederacy) may continue to be the crowning glory of Southern womanhood to revere the memory of those heroes in gray and to honor that unswerving devotion to principle which has made the Confederate Soldier the most majestic figure in the pages of history.”

Caroline Meriwether Goodlett, Founder of the UDC