Publisher's Synopsis
The following papers, written by Mrs. Dimitry while Historian of the "Stonewall Jackson Chapter" of New Orleans, were intended not solely to amuse and interest, but primarily to set forth in correct form historic events of the war of 1861-'65, and further to preserve and hand down to an interested posterity incidents semi-biographical which otherwise would have passed into oblivion. The author has derived her data not alone from written history, but largely from the lips of those who were participants in that memorable struggle - men who had been comrades of Mumford, confreres of Benjamin, and survivors of the ill-fated Louisiana. Material for the sketches of social life were drawn from the reminiscences of war-time women, mostly members of the Chapter, and all are based upon incidents occurring in real life. They shed side-lights upon the manners, customs and dress of that troublous period and reflect in their shining depths the high courage and quick wit of the women of the Southland. As a woman of the sixties Mrs. Dimitry herself writes in propria persona for she was one of the signers of those "fair Confederate bank notes," serving the Confederate government until its downfall. Born of splendid Southern lineage, a Mississippian, but of the Stuart family of Virginia and cousin to that chevalier Stuart "sans peur and sans reproche," she was qualified both by birth and experience to write feelingly and in authentic fashion. As the wife and intellectual helpmate of Prof. John Dimitry, she lived in an atmosphere of culture and scholarship. Professor Dimitry came of a family of educators and literary folk and was himself an historian of considerable merit, notable among his works being a "School History and Geography of Louisiana" and "The Confederate Military History of Louisiana." In this connection we can not refrain from quoting his peerless epitaph to Albert Sidney Johnston, engraved in the tomb of the Army of Tennessee, Metairie Cemetery, New Orleans. In its epigrammatic terseness of phrase, beauty of diction and poetic depth of feeling it deserves to rank as a classic.
