Southern Women

There is a book in our Archives at the First White House of the Confederacy titled A Woman's War. It is subtitled Southern Women, Civil War, and the Confederate Legacy, published by the Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, and the University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville.

I quote from the very first paragraph: "The outbreak of Civil War and invasion by Union armies meant that the lives of Southern women, black and white, rich and poor, would never be the same again. A war that freed the slave, reduced the wealthy's living standards, impoverished the yeomanry, and separated thousands of families for four long years required women of all classes and races to reassess their place within the social order,."

Sounds intriguing doesn't it? And it indeed is a very fine book and I don't know for sure, but  might possibly still be obtained from the Museum of the Confederacy Gift Shop in Richmond.

At any rate I have written briefly in a past blog about Kate Cumming, a Confederate nurse who left a detailed diary of her years during the War. Also, about our Gunboat Quilt which hangs in the FWH and was made by an Alabama woman (it is written up in this book). Women across the South made these to auction off, in order to make money to buy Confederate Gunboat as you know if you read our blog.

We still hearken back to Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind, my very favorite villain/heroine. Can you think of a better one? Well, maybe Varina Howell Davis or Mrs. Robert E. Lee, or....one of your or my ancestors?