Diary of a Union Lady, 1861-1865, and: Ladies of Richmond (review)

444CIVIL WAR HISTORY the common Southern white man bestows fulsome admiration upon wealthy Yankees who give die benefits of die new industrialism. But in keeping with the scholarly traditions of the Princeton University Press, Mr. Wooster refuses to accept such an assumption. Specifically he set about to disprove a hoary legend cherished by Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson, who believed that there were class differences in the much-controverted issues of secession. Fifteen slave state conventions made die decision to secede or not to secede in the crisis of 1860-1861. After an examination of the manuscript materials of the census of 1860 Mr. Wooster proves that the economic, slaveholding, and professional standing of the members of the secession conventions could not be conelated with the manner in which they voted on the momentous issue before them. The delegates were not divided in their opinions along class lines. The only significant difference of opinion was tenitorial in nature, east against west, hill against plain, Border States against Cotton States. The author does not present an interesting Marxian verdict like Charles A. Beard did fifty years ago in appraising the motives of die men who wrote the Constitution of die United States. He is prudentiy factual widiout being bold enough to make a generalization. Out of his welter of facts emerges a negative verdict. It was that the effort of the Soudi to be independent was not a conspiracy of upper classes. The attempt to win Southern independence had no class connotation. Francis B. Simdns Longwood College Diary of a Union Lady, 1861-1865. By Maria Lydig Daly. Edited by Harold E. Hammond. ( New York: Funk and Wagnalls Company, 1962. Pp. xlvii, 396. $6.00. ) Ladies of Richmond. By Katharine M. Jones. (Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill Company, 1962. Pp. 365. $6.00. ) The outpouring of literature on the Civil War notwithstanding, we know comparatively little of the homefolk during that period. Therefore, the publication of these two exceptionally good volumes is a welcome addition to die social history of the 1860's. Mrs. Maria Daly's Diary of a Union Lady may well become as prized a storehouse of Civil War information and insights as is Mary Chesnut's Diary from Dixie. In many ways the two authors were remarkably similar. Both were socialites of high breeding, gossipers, and keen observers; both maintained diaries for the full war years; and both recorded impressions of persons and events with regularity, freshness, and aplomb. The flightiness of each complemented die other's frankness. Thirty-seven at die outbreak of civil war, Mrs. Daly was die wife of Judge Charles P. Daly of the New York City Court of Common Pleas. She began her diary in January, 1861, and painstakingly recorded in detail her im- Book Reviews445 pressions of people, events, morale, and politics. She rarely restrained her feelings and never suppressed her prejudices. For example, she detested "gentle-hearted ladies" who swooned with pleasure over military weapons, and she had no use for "arrogant, self-righteous pharisees of the present age who go about preaching abolitionism and who believe in no creed save their own." Her journal teems with pen-pictures of noted contemporaries. As she and her husband were strong Democrats, Mrs. Daly had only scom for Abraham Lincoln. "Uncle Ape," as she termed him, "is mentally what he is physically, long and loose in die joints." General Thomas F. Meagher gave her the impression that "God Almighty had just made him to step off a scaffold with a big speech in his mouth." Of General James Shields she stated: "He chews and spits in a most disgusting manner." If Dorothea Dix struck her as "a deaf and despotic maiden of uncertain age," Julia Dent Grant won Mrs. Daly's admiration because of her "ladylike self-possession." A host of other notables parade vividly through the pages of the diary: Count Adam de Gurowski, Generals McClellan, Buder, Grant, Barlow, Dix, Corcoran and others, actress Laura Keene, Lowell and Emerson of literary fame, the Booth brothers (Edwin was a regular guest in the Daly home), and most of New York's influential set. In addition, Mrs. Daly provided intimate descriptions of the July, 1863...