A
Woman's Civil War
A Diary with Reminiscences
of the War, from March 1862
Cornelia Peake McDonald
Edited, with an Introduction by Minrose C. Gwin
Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography
"Both riveting eyewitness testimony and a story of courage
in the face of chaos. Cornelia McDonald's story is a well-written,
compelling tale of the Virginia home front in wartime." —Lynda
Lasswell Crist, The Virginia Magazine
"My young sons Harry and Allan
had begged me to let them go to the top of the hill early in
the morning to see what was going on. I had given permission,
thinking of no danger other than occurred every day; but now,
how I repented having let them go, and sat all that fearful afternoon
in terror for fear my boys had come to harm. I remained during
all those miserable hours with my baby on my lap and the four
little ones clustered around, listening to the dreadful storms
of battle.... Oh the anguish of those hours! My little boys!
How could I have suffered them to go away from me so thoughtlessly
when nearly every moment brought danger?"
—Cornelia Peake McDonald, 1862
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 children. For McDonald, history is what happens "inside
the house." 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 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 a woman's will to preserve her family and her
own sense of purpose as a "rebel" against all that
she regarded as tyrannical and brutal in war itself.
Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography
William L. Andrews, Series
Editor
Born in 1822 in Alexandria, Virginia, Cornelia Peake McDonald lived in Winchester, Virginia, with her nine children during
the Civil War. Her record of events was first published in a
volume of family history in 1935 from one of the eight handwritten
copies made for each of her surviving children before her death
in 1909. Minrose C. Gwin is professor of English at the University
of New Mexico.
Media & bookseller inquiries regarding review copies, events, and interviews can be directed to the publicity department at publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu or (608) 263-0734. (If you want to examine a book for possible course use, please see our Course Books page. If you want to examine a book for possible rights licensing, please see Rights & Permissions.) |
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April 1992
LC: 91-032345
E
314 pp. 6 x 9
6 illustrations
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