Memories of A Long Life in Virginia

Moore, Sallie Alexander (Mrs. John H. Moore), Memories of A Long Life in Virginia,Staunton: McClure Company, 1920.

During a Yankee search of her home Sallie Moore's silverware suddenly fell from its concealment beneath her hoop skirt. The Union officer in charge of the search gallantly helped her pick up the silverware and returned it to her.

Atwood letter, 1862

Civil War Letters From Maryland and Virginia, #10801

A Confederate soldier, Nehemiah Atwood, stationed at Culpeper Court House, tries to reassure his mother and sisters that the Yankees will not bother them in Page County, March 6, 1862: "I do not think that the enemy will hurt any of you and you must not be scared . . . Page is the safest county in Virginia . . . I knows you that you are afraid to Stay by your selves but I do not think that there will be any danger."

Cowles letter, 1863

Civil War Letters From Maryland and Virginia, #10801

Confederate women starved for masculine company could be polite to Yankee visitors yet remain defiantly Confederate. On January 8, 1863, Union soldier A. F. Cowles, King George [County] Court House, Virginia, tells his brother "the young Ladies here are very sociable but are strong secesh, thare is hardly a house but contains Some of the fair sex . . . I feal more at home here than eney place that I have been . . . I tell you it is hard for me to think that I have to fight against . . . thare brothers I cant but help fealing for them altho they differ with me."

Neville letter, 1864

Neville-Newman Correspondence, #2024

Some Yankees were viewed as potential husbands, not adversaries. In a letter of February 8, 1864, an outraged George Neville informs Nellie Newman their mutual acquaintance, Anne Eskridge, has married a New York Yankee in Union-occupied Norfolk because at age 28 she was anxious to marry: "She had told me that she intended to accept the first favorable offer."

Heroines of Dixie

Jones, Katherine M. (Katherine Macbeth), Heroines of Dixie: Confederate Women Tell Their Story of the War, Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1955.

After a frantic day of hiding and burying family valuables during June 1864, Cornelia Peake McDonald of Winchester, Virginia, came upon her three-year-old son Hunter who sobbingly exclaimed, "The Yankees are coming to our house and they will take all our breakfast and will capture me and Fanny." Fanny was a doll belonging to Hunter's sister Nelly.