Diary of Malvina S. Waring, April 8, 1865

I have neglected you, my little book, but don't you know how sick I am? And how they have all been busy nursing me, so tenderly, so patiently, so untiringly—Ernestine, Elise, and the members of this kind family, the Davidsons. We are back in our old quarters with them, and I count myself blessed that such is the case. Never can I repay them for their kindness! God, you pay them for me! Heaven, if ever they come to troublous days, and dark nights, send down thy tender light upon them! I cannot pay them; I am a miserable, weak thing, with very little moral strength and very much body (all aching). I wish my spirit didn't have to be pent up in this body. My brother told me of his prison house; we all have a prison house. Death is the escape—so why should any one dread death?

SOURCE: South Carolina State Committee United Daughters of the Confederacy, South Carolina Women in the Confederacy, Vol. 1, “A Confederate Girl's Diary,” p. 284