Yes, I saw that lovely Alabama belle on the championship game the other night, and you are right about social media. It would be out there in a big way today. Also I didn't know you could make all those sorts of calculations at Ancestry. That's amazing. Thanks!

Ephraim Anderson's account gives the belle's age as nineteen. The Tupelo paper said,"The Federals had held Courtland for some time, and, as is their wont, inflicted many insults upon its unarmed citizens without regard to sex. Among the abused and insulted of the fair sex was the belle of Courtland, a lady of high accomplishments, great amiability, and considerable wealth." So that narrows the field a bit.

The leading candidate for "the Belle" in the Courtland area, I think, had to be Bynam's daughter. The Federals were headquartered there and had taken virtually everything they had - and they had a lot. I don't have it before me right now, but according to the census, the total was headed toward a half million if I remember correctly. One of the other stories has "the Belle' being the Winston's daughter at Belle Mont, but that story was a concoction by Octavia Dockery that mixed together Rock Champion, Champion Hill,Olivia's mother Laura and her little spitz dog, Gen. Grant, and Belle Mont, so although there are two true stories within her short story, Octavia makes them unrecognizable. She was very strange, to say the least. The sad part is that she,being General Dockery's daughter, probably could have told the real story. I've contacted Belle Mont, and they are checking into Octavia's version.

Sue