During the Civil War, Dr. De Saussure served the Confederacy as
a surgeon, first with the Charleston Light Dragoons, and later
along the South Carolina coast. While her husband was away,
Nancy and her young daughter lived at Nancy’s father’s
plantation, which was close enough to her husband’s camp to
enable her to visit him relatively frequently. When General
Sherman’s army swept through South Carolina, Nancy fled their
home, which was destroyed by fire. After the Civil War, Nancy
Saussure taught at Vassar College. Nancy Bostick De Saussure
wrote Old Plantation Days: Being Recollections of the Days
Before the Civil War (1909) in the form of a letter to her
granddaughter, Dorothy. What you are about to read is an
“authentic” interview between The Civil War Gazette and Mrs. De
Saussure. The answers Mrs. De Saussure [pronounced DES-suh-sore]
provides are historically-accurate, taken from her journal,
diaries or letters. The questions are contemporary, but chosen
and phrased in a manner as if Mrs. De Saussure wer