Mary Gresham’s grief over invalid son’s death echoes from 1865

Washington Post ^ | 8-5-14 | Michael E. Ruane

[afraidfortherepublic]

Mary Baxter Gresham was 42 when her invalid son, LeRoy, died in June 1865.

She had already lost two infant children and had just lived through the upheaval of the Civil War in Macon, Ga.

But when 17-year-old LeRoy, know as “Loy,” died on June 18 in the house where he was born, she was devastated.

“God has tried me often and in many ways but never has my heart been so wrung as now,” she wrote to her sister, Sallie, on July 12. “And yet the trial had so much mercy mixed with it that my soul swells within me when I think it all over.”

Last week, Mary Gresham’s moving letter was posted online by the Library of Congress, along with her son’s extraordinary seven-volume, five-year journal.

The Library featured selected pages from the little-known diary in a Civil War sesquicentennial exhibit in 2012 and 2013 and has since had it, along with some family correspondence, prepared for the Internet.

The diary, which the Library thinks has never been published, is a fascinating look at the war through the eyes of a precocious Southern youngster who was largely housebound by illness.

He had a host of afflictions that appeared to stem from an improperly healed broken leg, which was “drawn up” and useless.

It is also a portrait of a well-to-do, slave-owning household, its family and slave dynamic, and the infirmities that tormented the frail author up to his death.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Many links at the source in this poignant record of 150 years ago.

[Mathews]

I don't want to even imagine what that must have been like.

[lee martell]

His mother was very articulate, in ways rarely seen today, except in period performances. One example where she describe the difficulty of dealing with her son’s tragic and sickly life;

“And yet the trial had so much mercy mixed with it that my soul swells within me when I think it all over.” She was able to experience it in an objective way from time to time.

[afraidfortherepublic]

That is why I posted it. I can’t imagine finding such expressive words after what she went through.