CONFEDERATE WOMEN VIEW THE WAR

More than 150 Confederate women’s diaries, sets of letters, and reminiscences—most of them from slaveholding households—fill the shelves of one large bookcase in my library. I often consult these volumes for information about conditions on the home front, fluctuations in morale, attitudes and opinions regarding political and military figures in both the Confederacy and the United States, and evidence of the war’s profound impact on daily life. Mary Chesnut’s famous diary—early editions of which were a combination of diary and reminiscence—is the most quoted, but certainly not the best, such account. Superb diaries include those of Kate Stone and Sarah Morgan from Louisiana, Emma Holmes from South Carolina, Eliza Francis Andrews from Georgia, and Judith W. McGuire and Sallie B. Putnam from Virginia. Kate Cumming’s journal and Phoebe Yates Pember’s memoir offer splendid accounts of nursing in the Western Theater and at Richmond’s Chimborazo Hospital, respectively. All these books create a sense of immediacy that transports readers into the turbulent years of the war.

Two diaries merit special attention. My favorite is “Journal of a Secesh Lady”: The Diary of Catherine Ann Devereux Edmondston, 1860–1866, edited by Beth Gilbert Crabtree and James W. Patton. In more than seven hundred pages of densely printed entries, Kate Edmondston provides an unrivaled look behind the scenes on the Confederate home front. Married to a planter in Halifax County, North Carolina, she followed the war via newspapers, letters from friends and relatives, and discussions with a circle of acquaintances. As effectively as any other participant’s account, her diary charts the fluctuations of morale and expectations behind the lines.

Three passages suggest the quality of the diary. As with most Confederates, Edmondston came to consider Robert E. Lee the greatest figure of the war. But in June 1862 she reacted unfavorably to reports that he had replaced Joseph E. Johnston in command of the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee was “too timid, believes too much in masterly inactivity, finds ‘his strength’ too much in ‘sitting still,’” she wrote. “His nick name last summer was ‘old-stick-in-the-mud.’ There is mud enough now in and about our lines, but pray God he may not fulfil the whole of his name.”42

An ardent Confederate, Edmondston often mentioned the importance of slavery to the southern cause. She recorded her thoughts about the debate over whether to arm slaves and place them in Confederate service as 1864 drew to a close. “We have hitherto contended that Slavery was Cuffee’s normal condition,” she observed, in opposition to the proposal, “the very best position he could occupy, the one of all others in which he was happiest. . . . No! freedom for whites, slavery for negroes. God has so ordained it.” As the war ground toward its conclusion, she repeatedly vowed to resist to the bitter end, and after Appomattox she poured out feelings of anger and defiance: “The Vulgar Yankee nation exults over our misfortunes, places its foot upon our necks, & extols its own prowess in conquering us. They command all the R Roads & other routes of travel & they have the ability to force their detested oath down the throat of every man amongst us.”43

The Civil War JournaI of Mary Greenhow Lee (Mrs. Hugh Holmes Lee) of Winchester, Virginia, edited by Eloise C. Strader, rivals Kate Edmondston’s in value. It abounds with information about myriad aspects of civilian life in a much-contested area in the Confederacy. Union and Confederate military forces regularly passed through Winchester, fought several battles within a twenty-mile radius, and sent large numbers of wounded soldiers into the city—all of which prompted comments from Mrs. Lee. She also recorded rumors from other theaters of the conflict, which reminds modern readers that morale often rose or fell on the basis of false information. The vagaries of life under Union occupation forms a theme through much of the journal, as does the effort by residents to keep up a normal routine centered around business affairs, social relations, and religious activities. A number of entries describe the ways in which the institution of slavery weakened under the stress of war. Most obviously, the journal’s many references to lost friends, material and mental hardships, and debilitating uncertainty underscore the conflict’s profound disruption of normal living patterns.

Like Kate Edmondston, Mary Greenhow Lee resolutely supported the Confederacy and harbored deep animosity toward the Federals. Lee’s surrender in April 1865 left her stunned: “I have looked on Genl. Lee as the rallying point for the Army of the South . . . ,” she observed on April 13, “but that hope is destroyed & I can only pray for strength to bear, what will be the greatest trial of all.” April 15 brought an anguished moment of acceptance regarding what she termed “my country, my beloved Southern Confederacy.” She never had doubted ultimate victory but conceded that “now if we fall, all has been in vain & the precious blood spilt has been that of martyrs. I shall have to drag on a weary existence, struggling with dire poverty in a country infested by Yankees, for they will pervade every section like the locusts of Egypt.”44

Anyone who embraces the idea of easy reconciliation after the war will find no comfort in Lee’s journal. On October 8, 1865, she described a stronger and more united sentiment “against the Yankees than existed a year ago. Old & young men fire with wrath at our present condition & are ready to side with any party who will chastise our tyrannical foe.”45

Kate Edmondston and Mary Greenhow Lee, together with other Confederate women who left literary evidence, should be part of any attempt to comprehend the short-lived southern nation. Their voices, as much as those of soldiers and politicians, illuminate the story of secession, war, and defeat.