Life in Dixie during the War, 1861-1862-1863-1864-1865

In the early part of 1862 the army of the Cumberland and also that of the Tennessee had grown to gigantic proportions. The history of that memorable era establishes the fact tha...

After every morsel of food had been taken from the people, and every vestige of nutrition extracted from the earth, the following order, in substance, was proclaimed throughout...

“No, only Maggie Benedict has been here crying as if her heart would break, and saying that her children are begging for bread, and she has none to give them. Give me a little o...

Early one morning in the February of the winter just referred to (that of 1864), as my sister lay awake, she heard some one step upon the portico and knock. As Toby opened the d...

At an early hour in the morning of a bright autumnal day, that memorable year 1864--the saddest of them all--Yankee was roped (not bridled, mark you), and crocus sacks, four for...

The tug of war was upon us from the mountains to the sea-board, and ingenious was the woman who devised means to keep the wolf, hungry and ravenous, from the door. The depreciat...

Dazed by a full realization that my brother and every male relative and friend were in the octopus arms of war, cruel and relentless, I stood riveted to the spot where my brothe...

“I know his hand-write, and this is it,” selecting a letter from a large package and handing it to me. The very first glimpse of the superscription assured me of his confident a...

No news from “the front;” no tidings from the loved ones in gray; no friendly spirit whispering words of cheer or consolation. Shut up within a narrow space, and guarded by Fede...

On the way to the post-office early one morning in the sultry month of July, 1864, to mail a number of letters which I deemed too important to be entrusted to other hands, I was...

DeKalb county, Georgia, of which Decatur is the county site, was among the first to enroll troops for Confederate service. The first volunteers from Decatur were James L. George...

The excitement incident to the morning and evening of yesterday left my mother and myself in no frame of mind for repose, and we spent the night in suspense and painful apprehen...

The day clear, bright and beautiful, in July, 1864, and though a midsummer’s sun cast its vertical rays upon the richly-carpeted earth, refreshing showers tempered the heat and...

The above statement of the expense attending a round trip to Dalton, Georgia, is an excerpt from a book which contains a record of every item of my expenditures for the year 1864.

During the early spring of that memorable year, 1864, it was announced to the citizens of Decatur that Judge Hook and family, including his accomplished daughter, Mrs. Whiteside...

I am asked to write a few words of introduction to these reminiscences of a lady who, in the pleasant afternoon of a life devoted to deeds of mercy and charity, turns fondly and...

Before the war there were in Decatur but two churches, the Methodist and the Presbyterian; although Baptist and Episcopal services were occasionally held. The churches first men...

After the majority of these sketches were written, I was permitted by my sister to take a few extracts from the cherished letters of our brother, which she numbered and carefull...

On the 9th of April, 1865, at Appomattox Court House, Lee had surrendered his army of twenty-five thousand men to Grant with his four-fold forces. One after another of the Confe...

My sister closed her book, and, looking in the direction indicated, agreed with me that the negro woman, clothed in the habiliments of widowhood, who was coming up the avenue wi...

In sympathy with a disappointed people who had staked all and lost all in the vain effort to defend the inherited rights of freemen, and had not yet rallied from the depression...

In the early spring of 1862, there occurred an episode of the war which, up to that date, was the most exciting that had happened in our immediate section. The story has often b...

In several previous sketches references have been made to the Misses Morton. Not only they, but the whole family, bore an interesting and heroic part in the scenes of the war. M...

After an appeal to physical force, as the only means of redressing our wrongs, was fully determined upon, we made many important discoveries, chief of which was that we were not...

“Well, my boy, our patients are all getting along nicely in the Fair Ground hospital,” was the comforting assurance I gave to Toby, who was my faithful co-worker in all that per...

A patriotic co-operation between the citizens of Decatur and Atlanta soon sprang up, and in that, as in all things else, a social and friendly interchange of thought and feeling...

After mingling renewed vows of allegiance to our cause, and expressions of a willing submission to the consequences of defeat--privations and evil dire, if need be--with my morn...

Notwithstanding the restful signification of “Alabama,” the State bearing that name had passed the ordinance of secession, and mingled her voice with those of other States which...

In the winter of 1864 there seems to have been a lull of hostilities between the armies at “the front.” Morgan’s men were rendezvousing near Decatur. Their brave and dashing chi...

The north side of the court-house square at Decatur is intersected by a public road leading to North Decatur, Silver Lake, the Chattahoochee River, and points beyond. On the eas...

“I don’t know’m, but I am; and every time I feels this way, I gets one; so I’ll just take my two little black calves and trot off to the office and get it;” and suiting the acti...

The night was black as Erebus. Not a scintillant of light from moon or star penetrated the dense forest, and no eye save that of God discerned the danger of the situation. Hill...

At some time in 1863, it was my privilege to meet a gallant band of men whose faith in the justice of our cause was so strong that they were constrained to turn their faces Sout...

The period of reconstruction, forcing upon the Southern states the obnoxious Fourteenth Amendment, so humiliating and so unjust, especially at that time, had intensified the pre...

To a woman who lives and moves and has her being in the past, an invocation to time to “turn backward in its flight,” would seem superfluous. The scenes of other years being eve...

The citizens of Decatur were always invited to entertainments, social, literary, and musical, in Atlanta, that had in view the interest, pleasure or comfort of our soldiers; the...