[Wallace T.]

Unfortunately, the Civil War occurred before Edison developed the phonograph in 1877. It was not until the 1890s that mass production began. By that time, Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, Davis, Jackson, and Lee were all dead. I have heard a short recording attributed to the poet Walt Whitman, a native of Long Island, around 1890. His speech patterns were similar to those of the Archie Bunker character in the 1970s show, All in the Family. Probably an older person in an area near Arlington or Alexandria, Virginia, that has not become Yankeefied like the Northern Neck would come close to Robert E. Lee's speech patterns. Stonewall Jackson's old West Virginia hometowns are largely populated by descendants of the people who were there during his childhood. Replicating his speech patterns would not be hard.

[Fairview]

Wallace, I was privileged to be close to an elderly cousin of mine, who was born in 1903 and lived to be 97 (and was mentally clear as a bell and tough as nails to the very end). She was an educated lady who came from a good family in Virginia; if you are at all a student of the War you would recognize the family name instantly. She had been raised by her grandfather, who was a captain in the Eighth Virginia and survived Pickett’s Charge. Listening to her and to her older brother, I got a clear sense of the way people in NVA talked 150 years ago. It’s not very different at all from the way my surviving kin and I talk today. It’s not the rich Magnolia Mouth accent those from the Deep South have, though; more a question of rhythmicity, pacing, and a few different pronunciations.