Browse Items (23 total)

Catherine Edmondston worried about the vehemence of her secessionist views because of the divisions they were causing in her own family. Before Lincoln’s call for troops in April 1861, Edmondston’s parents and sister remained staunch…

By integrating evidence from soldiers and civilians, black and white, at a moment when home front and battlefront merged, Sherman's March becomes a far more complex story-one that illuminated the importance of culture for determining the limits of…

Buck Creek July 8th 1864
Governor Vance
Dear Sir,
I take the liberty of asking you whether you can not process my son’s discharge from the army that he may come home to protect me and his sister.
Since the late raid on Camp Vance there are…

Letters on a Female Character by Virginia Randolph Cary, published in 1828, praised the ideals of the domestic sphere. Women, according to Cary, should depend on a male protection. Citing scripture Cary states women was “formed from man”…

July 16, 1860 Finished making Blackberry wine. Made in all 28 ½ gal exclusive of one Demijohn which from being I suppose accidentally corked burst. I am told however that a Demijohn will burst even when uncorked if it is filled into the neck.…

It gets almost painful to go to Father’s we differ so widely. He it is true says nothing personal or unhandsome, but he censures so sweepingly every thing that SC does. Mama & Susan do go on so about the “Flag. Who cares for the old striped rag…

We went to bed last night congratulating ourselves that at length we had begun to taste some of the immunities of Free negroism. The negro contracts were all signed by them & witnessed & they seemed not only contented butthankfulfor them.…

Yesterday to my great surprise as I was standing in the Store Room a finely dressed Military looking old gentleman, tho in citizen's clothes, with beard & moustache as white as snow, came walking across the back yard having driven in to the back gate…

Antebellum southern women, like all others, lived in a discrete social system and political economy within which gender, class, and race relations shaped their lives and identities. Thus, even a preliminary sketch of the history of southern women…

I WAS born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away. My father was a carpenter, and considered so intelligent and skilful in his trade, that, when buildings out of the common line were to be erected, he was sent…