All Things Altered: Women in the Wake of Civil War and ReconstructionFew readers of Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind remained unmoved by how the strong-willed Scarlett O'Hara tried to rebuild Tara after the Civil War ended. This book examines the problems that Southern women faced during the Reconstruction Era, in Part I as mothers, wives, daughters or sisters of men burdened with financial difficulties and the radical Republican regime, and in Part II with specific illustrations of their tribulations through the letters and diaries of five different women. A lonely widow with young children, Sally Randle Perry is struggling to get her life back together, following the death of her husband in the war. Virginia Caroline Smith Aiken, a wife and mother, born into affluence and security, struggles to emerge from the financial and psychological problems of the postwar world. Susan Darden, also a wife and mother, details the uncertainties and frustrations of her life in Fayette, Mississippi. Jo Gillis tells the sad tale of a young mother straining to cope with the depressed circumstances enveloping most ministers in the aftermath of the war. As the wife of a Methodist Episcopal minister in the Alabama Conference she sacrifices herself into an early grave in an attempt to further her husband's career. Inability to collect a debt three times that of the $10,000 debt her father owed brought Anna Clayton Logan, her eleven brothers and sisters, and her parents face-to-face with starvation. |
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... distant from Richmond, Elvira Seddon explained on May 4, 1865 (almost a month after Appomattox) that they were "thoroughly in the dark. We have no idea where Gen Lee and his army are. We don't know what loss he. 11 SO 03 The Long War Ends.
... Seddon and her family. "Our hearts were filled with sadness. Our capital was gone, our ... invincible army defeated, many dear ones doubtless lying on the gory battlefield. Separation from beloved friends at hand, life in the Yankee ...
... Seddon. "I feel the courage of despair and am prepared for any calamity save one, submission. Never, never could I consent to that! Let us fight it out, 'til not a man or a woman survives to bear the yolk of servitude to tyrants! I feel ...
... Seddon sobbed: "'We are a conquered people. Henceforth, we must live subservient to Yankee domination. We have no country to be proud of; no flag to point to; the hated stars and stripes are floating insolently over us. Such are my ...
... Seddon to question what seemed to her God's abandonment of their cause. The future looked ominous. But surely the South would rise again! "How we shall be taunted with our failure! Oh! My spirit rebels. It is too hard, too hard! I find ...