 | |  |
THEMES
Loss is a constant theme in Louisa's Diary in both her personal life and that of the slaveholding South. Louisa's losses climax with Southern defeat in April 1865 and four rapid personal tragedies in January/February, 1866: the exit of all but a handful of the freed Pantops slaves; the out of wedlock pregnancy of her "sister," Nannie Anderson by their first cousin, David Anderson; the death of Eliza Macmurdo, the eldest Anderson grandchild; the death of Louisa's Mammy Eliza, mother of Nannie and grandmother of Eliza.
Two theses explaining the Old South are substantiated by Louisa's Diary. The enclosing garden of kin and religion does circumscribe Louisa's life and the majority of her reactions to events. Each loss must be explained by God's will and must be borne with patience and expectancy. Louisa repeatedly cautions herself to "wait and hope." The religion explanation for Southern defeat is evidenced in admonitions from the pulpit because of so many engaging in personal merriment while Southern armies are absorbing large losses and irreversible defeats and also in Louisa's fear that the Southern people are under God's rod because of their lack of humility and virtue.
Louisa describes in detail: Preparations for attending a wedding including making the clothes for an extended visit. Beaux and dancing parties. Several weddings both before and during the war. An excursion to Monticello. Four deaths are described in detail: her brother-cousin Jim Anderson, her brother James Minor, her sister-cousin Maggie Anderson, her mammy-cousin, Eliza Leitch Anderson. A meeting of the Washington Society and the address by Edward Everett on the "Character of Washington." A visit to the State Agricultural Fair. A tour of Richmond prior to the war. The passage of armies. The Delevan Confederate Hospital in Charlottesville. Civilian fears and attitude during the war. A raid by Yankee soldiers who ransack Pantops. Small glimpses of slave life and relations with slaves before, during, and after the war. The freeing of 76 slaves by her great uncle's will and their departure for Liberia. Yankee school teachers in Albemarle County and her friendship with several. Plantation-education and the literature read.
| | |