Replies

Major-General Benjamin F. Butler to Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott, May 29, 1861 (Butler reports his plans for Newport News.)

https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2017/09/headquarters-departmentof-virginia-may.html

Diary of William Howard Russell: May 29, 1861 (Mr. Russell describes the problem of “the Hebrews,” “one of the evils which afflicts the Louisianians.”)

https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2016/08/diary-of-william-howard-russell-may-29.html

Diary of Judith W. McGuire: May 29, 1861 (Judith can’t go home and learns that Yankee soldiers have been searching her home for weapons.)

https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2014/12/diary-of-judith-w-mcguire-may-29-1861.html

Diary of Judith W. McGuire: May 29, 1861 – Night (More on the woes of secessionist Alexandrians.)

https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2014/12/diary-of-judith-w-mcguire-may-29-1861_7.html

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: May 29 and 30, 1861 (On the way to Richmond. Former U.S. Secretary of War Floyd describes his treachery while in that office.)

https://civilwarnotebook.blogspot.com/2015/02/diary-of-john-beauchamp-jones-may-29.html

Judith McGuire was a very interesting person. She was the wife of an Episcopal churchman with their home in Alexandria. When Union forces seized the city she fled South with what possessions they could pack into a carriage. They abandoned their house, furniture and many possessions.

They were a family of modest means, owning no slaves. They could not afford Richmond and lived in various towns in Virginia during the war. She took a job as a clerk and was constantly worried about finding shelter and enough to feed her family. McGuire wondered what had become of her home and what would become of them after the War.

McGuire's story is very different from Mary Chestnut's. She was not born into wealth and she did not move in the same circles as high officials in the Confederacy or its Army.

Her world view is interesting. She had an unshakeable conviction that Virginia and the Confederacy were her "country" and never considered that the Union might have been such. She was convinced that if they ever fell into the hands of Union soldiers they would be subjected to barbarous acts.

McGuire's story does not at all fit the 21st Century narrative that all who supported the Southern cause did so out of racism and to support the institution of slavery.