University of Virginia Library

PREFACE.

This "Diary" sees the light unexpectedly. In its origin
nothing of the sort was anticipated. During its progress
the writer often said, "I am keeping this for the members
of the family who are too young to remember these days."
Nothing was intended but a private record, into which friends
and kindred might in coming years look with some pleasure.
They will hear much of the War of Secession, and will take
special interest in the thoughts and records of one of their
own family who had passed through the wonderful scenes of
this great revolution. Subsequent circumstances have led
to its publication. Partial friends think that others might
be interested by its pages. It was kept at points of great
interest in connection with the men and events of the war.
There was every opportunity, and certainly every intention,
to keep a true record. Enormous as were the wrongs done
us, yet we had no desire to do the slightest wrong to even
the bitterest of our enemies. We refused not to do them
justice; we were not unwilling to seek for them the mercy
of Heaven; to extend to them the hand of Charity; to
supply their wants when captured; to attend as far as
possible to their sick, and dying, and dead; and asked for
nothing from them but that they would leave our borders,

never to return. We could not forget the injury done to
our country. If what we wrote indicates this, what is it but
the voice of nature, which neither fear nor hope could
repress? The ruin of the whole South! Where are the
colours dark enough for that picture? With her rightful
government overturned; her territory seized by lawless
hands; her system of domestic labour suddenly broken up;
her estates robbed; her fields desolated; her barns destroyed
by fire; her temples profaned; her once joyous homes here
and there silent as death; her old men and women going
with sorrow to the grave, because their gallant sons are not;
her fair and fainting daughters mourning for loved ones
whom they girded for the fight, and saw again never more;
her widows and orphans, whom sorrow may kill, if want
does not starve them; her wounded, and scarred, and crippled,
and suffering, with no rest for any save in the quiet
graves at home, or in the vast cemeteries, where such hosts
of her slaughtered children lie. How must we think or
speak of all this? Let the coldest heart ever frozen by
Northern interest or prejudice answer.

Shall this breach never be healed? Are there no able
and patriotic men North and South—no men of God—fitted
to achieve this work without further injury or shame to
either party? This great revolution cannot be without
God—without whom not a sparrow falls to the ground. If
there be error or mischief, that is of man. With God "one
day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one
day." He sees the end from the beginning. His great
"purposes run along the line of ages," and, worked out as He
ordains, produce good, and good only. For ages He has
blessed the South with the fairest land, the purest social
circle, the noblest race of men, and the happiest people, on

earth. Under a mysterious Providence, millions of the
coloured race have been saved from the foulest paganism;
millions mentally and morally elevated far above those of
their native land, and multitudes saved in Christ forever.
Is it God's purpose to break up this system? Who can
believe that it was His will to do it by war and bloodshed?
Or that turning this people loose without preparation, a rapid
demoralization, idleness, poverty and vice should doom so
many of them to misery, or send them so rapidly to the
grave? In this transition state, must the earth remain
uncultivated, and its fruits so lessened as to reduce all to
comparative poverty, and threaten such numbers with
actual starvation? Must a war of races come? Must a
spirit of bitter hatred burn on between the sections of our
unhappy country? Why not one of peace and forgiveness
instead? Why not the healing balm of love? Why not
the spirit of Christ, pervading all hearts, and binding up all
wounds? God of love, hasten the day! We are verily in
need of His gracious assistance. We have cried to Him
through many a gloomy day. The days are dark and dreary
still. The old South has passed away; her music is all
dead; her harp hung where no mortal hand can sweep its
chords again, and the very winds of Heaven can bring from
it naught save a few wailing notes, sad enough to break
every human heart.

The following pages are, as intimated above, presented
to the public more in compliance with the wishes of others
than of the writer. She has no experience in matters of this
sort, and claims nothing except what may be due to sincerity
and truth. Her earnest prayer is, that what is erroneous
may be forgiven her, and the whole result be agreeable and
useful to her readers.