I blogged about Kate Cumming, Civil War nurse, on 11/12/10. She wrote a diary after the war about her experiences. Although she was adamant that the South should win and was on the "side of justice and right", her faith in God enabled her to accept defeat without questioning.
Like many Southerners, she blamed President Lincoln, the North, and some segments of southern society for the loss. She felt the lack of unity of the South was one of the biggest reasons for the defeat.
She also bitterly denounced the trial of Henry Wirz, Confederate commander of Andersonville Prison. Wirz was the scapegoat, convicted of conspiracy and murder, and hanged in Washington. He was the only Confederate soldier executed for war crimes after the war.
Cumming republished her diary in 1895. The Encyclopedia of Alabama says "In keeping with her belief in Lost Cause ideology, she dropped passages critical of various southerners' actions during the war, including cotton planters who refused to grown food and wealthy women who did not nurse, as well as those. sections that highlighted the lack of southern unity during the war."
She never married, and remained devoted to preserving and promoting the memory of the Confederacy.
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