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A Woman's Diary of the Siege of Vicksburg |
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| Edited by G. W. Cable The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, May 1885, to October 1885, The Century Co., New-York, F. Warne &Co., London, Vol. XXX., New Series Vol. VIII, pages 768 to 774 |
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Note: Other parts of this lady's diaries were published as War Diary of a Union Woman in the South.
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UST a
quarter of a century ago a young lady of New Orleans found herself an
alien and an enemy to the sentiments of the community about her.
Surrounded by friends and social companions, she was nevertheless
painfully alone. In her enforced silence she began a diary intended solely
for her own eye. A betrothed lover came suddenly from a neighboring State,
claimed her hand in haste, and bore her away, a happy bride. Happy, yet
anxious. The war was now fairly upon the land, and her husband, like
herself, cherished sympathies whose discovery would have brought jeopardy
of life, ruin, and exile. In the South, those days, all life was romantic.
Theirs was full of adventure. At length they were shut up in Vicksburg. I
hope some day to publish the whole diary; but the following portion is
specially appropriate to the great panorama of battle in which a nation of
readers is just now so interested. I shall not delay the reader to tell
how I came by the manuscript, but only to say that I have not molested its
original text. The name of the writer is withheld at her own request.
Geo. W. Cable.