Review

On the night of March 11, 1862, as the heavy tramp of Confederate marching troops died away in the distance—her husband’s regiment among them—Cornelia Peake McDonald began her diary of events in war-torn Winchester, Virginia.

McDonald’s story of the Civil War records a personal and distinctly female battle of her own—a southern woman’s lonely struggle in the midst of chaos to provide safety and shelter for herself and her nine children. She relates the trauma that occurs when the safety of the home is disrupted and destroyed by the forces of war, when women and children are put out of their houses and have nowhere to go.

Whether she is describing a Union soldier’s theft of her Christmas cakes, the discovery of a human foot in her garden, or the heart-wrenching death of her baby daughter, McDonald’s story of the civil War at home is compelling and disturbing. Her tremendous determination and unyielding spirit in the face of the final collapse of her world is testimony to this woman’s will to preserve her family.

This spirited lady tells an impudent Yankee soldier who dares to set foot on her back porch as if he owns the place “that he was entitled to six feet of Southern land if he needed it, and that we would joyfully give him every one of them, but more than that they never would have.” Se also tells a Yankee soldier who forced her to house his troops, “I shall be very glad to see you, Col. Candee, on your way back if you have time to stop.”

In the midst of the horror, she still conveys the delight of watching her children grow up, the joy and comfort of going to church, and even amusing moments.

A Woman’s Civil War is a captivating and moving story of a personal life lived through a great crossroads in history.

Gramercy Books, Hardcover, 303 Pages, 1992, 2003