Ada Monroe was an American socialite and farmer who settled in Cold Mountain, North Carolina during the 1860s.
Biography[]
Ada Monroe was born in Charleston, South Carolina, the daughter of Reverend Donald Monroe. She was raised in considerable wealth, and she was privately opposed to secession and slavery on the eve of the American Civil War. In 1861, she moved with her father to the Black Cove farm in Cold Mountain, North Carolina, as it was believed that the mountain air would be beneficial to her father's failing health. While there, she befriended Sally Swanger, the wife of her father's acquaintance Esco Swanger, and she fell in love with the woodworker William P. Inman. Not long after, Inman volunteered for the Confederate States Army, and Monroe exchanged photographs with him, while Inman passionately kissed her before marching off to join the 25th North Carolina Infantry Regiment. While Inman was absent, the local Confederate Home Guard officer Raymond Teague harassed the Monroe family, as he desired both their farm and Ada's hand in marriage. During the war, Monroe remained close with the Swanger family, and, after the death of Ada's father in 1864, the Swangers sent for the experienced farmer Ruby Thewes to help Monroe maintain the Black Cove farm. Monroe and Thewes developed an initially awkward friendship, as Thewes was a rugged "hillbilly" farmer's daughter, and Monroe was a well-educated Southern belle without any farming experience. Months later, Monroe and Thewes took Sally Swanger in after Teague and his Home Guard shot Esco and his two deserter sons dead while searching the area for deserters; Sally was rendered mute from the trauma. Not long after, Monroe and Thewes also sheltered Thewes' once-abusive father Stobrod Thewes, who had become a peaceful man after taking up music. After Stobrod was shot and wounded in January 1865 and his friend and fellow deserter-turned-musician Ethan Pangle was shot dead, Monroe, Ruby, and Stobrod took shelter in an abandoned Cherokee camp in the mountains, afraid of Teague's retaliation towards them for sheltering a deserter. While there, Monroe reunited with Inman, who had trekked back to Cold Mountain from Raleigh after deserting. They consummated their love that night after exchanging informal marriage vows inspired by Monroe's knowledge of Muslim wedding customs (repeating thrice "I marry you"), but, the next morning, they were accosted by Teague and his Home Guardsmen, who had tortured Ruby's beau Georgia White into giving up their location. In the ensuing confrontation, Ruby shot one of the Home Guardsmen as Teague prepared to shoot Inman, resulting in a shootout in which Ruby was shot and wounded and Inman killed all of the Home Guardsmen, only to be mortally wounded by Charlie Bosie. Inman died in Monroe's arms, but, months later, Monroe gave birth to Grace Monroe, Inman's posthumous daughter. Monroe continued to live at Black Cove with the Thewes family and Sally Swanger, while raising her daughter in a peaceful life.
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