Diary of Judith Brockenbrough McGuire: March 18, 1863

This evening, when leaving Richmond, we were most unexpectedly joined at the cars by our friend Nannie Packard. Dear child, we had not seen her since her father's family left their home, some weeks before we left ours. Well do I remember the feeling of misery which I experienced at seeing them go off. We have all suffered since that time, but none of us can compare with them in that respect. They are living in desolated Fauquier. There they have buried their lovely little Kate, and N's principal object in visiting this country now is to see the grave of her eldest brother, a victim of the war, and to see the lady at whose house he died, and who nursed him as though he had been her son We enjoy her society exceedingly, and linger long over our reminiscences of the past, and of home scenes. Sadly enough do we talk, but there is a fascination about it which is irresistible. It seems marvellous that, in the chances and changes of war, so many of our “Seminary Hill” circle should be collected within the walls of this little cottage. Mrs. Packard has once been, by permission of the military authorities, to visit her old home; she found it used as a bakery for the troops stationed around it. After passing through rooms which she scarcely recognized, and seeing furniture, once her own, broken and defaced, she found her way to her chamber. There was her wardrobe in its old place; she had left it packed with house-linen and other valuables, and advanced towards it, key in hand, for the purpose of removing some of its contents, when she was roughly told by a woman sitting in the room not to open that wardrobe, “there was nothing in it that belonged to her.” Oh, how my blood would have boiled, and how I should have opened it, unless put aside by force of arms, just to have peeped in to see if my own things were still there, and to take them if they were! But Mrs. P., more prudently, used a gentle remonstrance, and finding that nothing could be effected, and that rudeness would ensue, quietly left the room. We bide our time.

SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern Refugee, During the War, p. 199-200