War-Time Sketches: Historical and Otherwise - Softcover

Dimitry, Adelaide Stuart

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1493547925 ISBN 13: 9781493547920

Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013

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.

About this title

About the Author

Adelaide Stuart was born in 1843 in Pike County, Mississippi to Oscar J.E. and Sarah (Hardaman) Stuart. Her father, of noble Virginia lineage, had relocated to central Mississippi after his marriage in 1837, and began a successful law practice in the town of Summit. In 1859, Adelaide and her sister Annie were sent to Saint Mary's Hall, a private school in Burlington, New Jersey, but they returned to Mississippi when the war began in 1861. Her older brothers, James and Oscar, enlisted in the 18th Regiment Mississippi Volunteers; James was later killed in 1862 at the Battle of Manassas Junction, and Oscar was killed in 1863 at Marye's Heights. After the war, Adelaide worked as a school teacher, and in 1871, she married John Bull Smith Dimitry, a former Louisiana Confederate soldier who had been wounded at Shiloh and thereafter served in the Confederate Post Office Department. Adelaide served as Historian of the Stonewall Jackson Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy in New Orleans from 1909 until her death in 1911.

Edition details

• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1493547925
• ISBN 13: 9781493547920
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 118