[21] A cousin of Mrs. Lincoln.

He pulled the check-string as we reached the house, adding, "This is
it," and absurdly correcting himself with "Where do you live?"--"211. I
thank you. Good-evening"; the last with emphasis as he prepared to
follow. He returned the salutation, and I hurriedly regained the house.
Monsieur stood over the way. A look through the blinds showed him
returning to his domicile, several doors below.

I returned to my own painful reflections. The Mr. Todd who was my
"sweetheart" when I was twelve and he twenty-four, who was my brother's
friend, and daily at our home, was put away from among our acquaintance
at the beginning of the war. This one, I should not know. Cords of
candy and mountains of bouquets bestowed in childish days will not make
my country's enemy my friend now that I am a woman.

Tuesday, May 2d, 1865.

While praying for the return of those who have fought so nobly for us,
how I have dreaded their first days at home! Since the boys died, I
have constantly thought of what pain it would bring to see their
comrades return without them--to see families reunited, and know that
ours never could be again, save in heaven. Last Saturday, the 29th of
April, seven hundred and fifty paroled Louisianians from Lee's army
were brought here--the sole survivors of ten regiments who left four
years ago so full of hope and determination. On the 29th of April,
1861, George left New Orleans with his regiment. On the fourth
anniversary of that day, they came back; but George and Gibbes have
long been lying in their graves....

June 15th.

Our Confederacy has gone with one crash--the report of the pistol fired
at Lincoln.

THE END

Reading this for the first time, in all these many years, I wish to
bear record that God never failed me, through stranger vicissitudes
than I ever dared record. Whatever the anguish, whatever the extremity,
in His own good time He ever delivered me. So that I bless Him to-day
for all of life's joys and sorrows--for all He gave--for all He has
taken--and I bear witness that it was all Very Good.

SARAH MORGAN DAWSON.

July 23d, 1896.
CHARLESTON,
SOUTH CAROLINA.

The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A

End of Project Gutenberg's A Confederate Girl's Diary, by Sarah Morgan Dawson

*