A Woman's Diary Of The Siege Of Vicksburg

JUST 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.

 

 

We reached Vicksburg that night and went to H––’s room. Next morning the cook he had engaged arrived, and we moved into this house. Martha's ignorance keeps me busy, and H–– is kept close at his office.

 

SOURCE: George W. Cable, “A Woman's Diary Of The Siege Of Vicksburg”, The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, Vol. XXX, No. 5, September 1885, p. 767