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  A VIRGINIA GIRL IN THE
  CIVIL WAR




  A VIRGINIA GIRL
  IN THE CIVIL WAR
  1861-1865

  BEING A RECORD OF THE ACTUAL EXPERIENCES
  OF THE WIFE OF A CONFEDERATE OFFICER

  _COLLECTED AND EDITED BY_
  MYRTA LOCKETT AVARY

  [Illustration]


  NEW YORK
  D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
  1903




  COPYRIGHT, 1903
  BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY


  _Published February, 1903_




INTRODUCTION


This history was told over the tea-cups. One winter, in the South, I
had for my neighbor a gentle, little brown-haired lady, who spent many
evenings at my fireside, as I at hers, where with bits of needlework
in our hands we gossiped away as women will. I discovered in her
an unconscious heroine, and her Civil War experiences made ever an
interesting topic. Wishing to share with others the reminiscences she
gave me, I seek to present them here in her own words. Just as they
stand, they are, I believe, unique, possessing at once the charm of
romance and the veracity of history. They supply a graphic, if artless,
picture of the social life of one of the most interesting and dramatic
periods of our national existence. The stories were not related in
strict chronological sequence, but I have endeavored to arrange them
in that way. Otherwise, I have made as few changes as possible. Out of
deference to the wishes of living persons, her own and her husband’s
real names have been suppressed and others substituted; in the case of
a few of their close personal friends, and of some whose names would
not be of special historical value, the same plan has been followed.

Those who read this book are admitted to the sacred councils of close
friends, and I am sure they will turn with reverent fingers these pages
of a sweet and pure woman’s life--a life on which, since those fireside
talks of ours, the Death-Angel has set his seal.

Memoirs and journals written not because of their historical or
political significance, but because they are to the writer the natural
expression of what life has meant to him in the moment of living, have
a value entirely apart from literary quality. They bring us close to
the human soul--the human soul in undress. We find ourselves without
preface or apology in personal, intimate relation with whatever makes
the yesterday, to-day, to-morrow of the writer. When this current
of events and conditions is impelled and directed by a vital and
formative period in the history of a nation, we have only to follow
its course to see what history can never show us, and what fiction can
unfold to us only in part--how the people thought, felt, and lived who
were not making history, or did not know that they were.

This is the essential value of A Virginia Girl in the Civil War: it
shows us simply, sincerely, and unconsciously what life meant to an
American woman during the vital and formative period of American
history. That this American woman was also a Virginian with all a
Virginian’s love for Virginia and loyalty to the South, gives to her
record of those days that are still “the very fiber of us” a fidelity
rarely found in studies of local color. Meanwhile, her grateful
affection for the Union soldiers, officers and men, who served and
shielded her, should lift this story to a place beyond the pale of
sectional prejudice.

  MYRTA LOCKETT AVARY.

    NEW YORK, _November 1, 1902_.




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                               PAGE

  I.--HOME LIFE IN A SOUTHERN HARBOR                        1

  II.--HOW I MET DAN GREY                                  12

  III.--THE FIRST DAYS OF THE CONFEDERACY                  22

  IV.--THE REALITIES OF WAR                                38

  V.--I MEET BELLE BOYD AND SEE DICK IN A NEW LIGHT        51

  VI.--A FAITHFUL SLAVE AND A HOSPITAL WARD                59

  VII.--TRAVELING THROUGH DIXIE IN WAR TIMES               69

  VIII.--BY FLAG OF TRUCE                                  83

  IX.--I MAKE UP MY MIND TO RUN THE BLOCKADE               91

  X.--I CROSS THE COUNTRY IN AN AMBULANCE AND THE
        PAMUNKEY ON A LIGHTER                             101

  XI.--THE OLD ORDER                                      113

  XII.--A DANGEROUS MASQUERADE                            124

  XIII.--A LAST FAREWELL                                  139

  XIV.--THE LITTLE JEW BOY AND THE PROVOST’S DEPUTY       144

  XV.--I FALL INTO THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY                 150

  XVI.--THE FLOWER OF CHIVALRY                            172

  XVII.--PRISONERS OF THE UNITED STATES                   188

  XVIII.--WITHIN OUR LINES                                211

  XIX.--MY COMRADE GENERAL JEB STUART                     230

  XX.--“WHOSE BUSINESS ’TIS TO DIE”                       244

  XXI.--RESCUED BY THE FOE                                263

  XXII.--WITH DAN AT CHARLOTTESVILLE                      285

  XXIII.--“INTO THE JAWS OF DEATH”                        297

  XXIV.--BY THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH                         315

  XXV.--THE BEGINNING OF THE END                          330

  XXVI.--HOW WE LIVED IN THE LAST DAYS OF THE
         CONFEDERACY                                      349

  XXVII.--UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES