Heroines of Dixie [REVIEW]

A book lay on the bookshelf in my home for several years, until I decided to take it off the shelf this year and read it. I must state that it's now in the top five of my favorite books of all time. Heroines of Dixie, published in 1955 by The Bobbs-Merrill Company is a must-read for anyone interested in reading true stories of the struggles the women of Dixie faced from 1861-1865. These women dealt with the perils of war first-hand. Their sons, husbands, brothers, and fathers went off to war to defend their homes against the brutal and ruthless military of the United States government.


Katharine M. Jones performed an astounding task compiling diaries and letters written by women of the South. Contributors included such names as Varina Howell Davis, wife of President Jefferson Davis; Mary Custis Lee, wife of General Robert E. Lee; Mary Anna Jackson, wife of General Stonewall Jackson; Belle Boyd, a Southern spy from Martinsburg, Virginia; Mary D. Waring, who wrote "They Marched Into Mobile to the Tune of Yankee Doodle Dandy.'


One of my favorite passages in the book is by Cordelia Lewis Scales. Delia was born
eight miles north of Holly Springs, Mississippi at the family home known as Oakland. Following is an excerpt from her diary, dated January 27, 1863:

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​The next we had were the "Grierson Thieves" & the next the 7th Kan. Jay hawkers. I can't write of these; it makes my blood boil to think of the outrages they committed. They tore the ear rings out of the ladies ears, pulled their rings and brest pins off, took them by the hair; threw them down & knocked them about. One of them sent me word that they shot ladies as well as men, & if I did not stop talking to them so & displaying my Confederate flag, he'd blow my brains out. I sent him word by the lady that I did not expect anything better from Yankees, but he must remember two could play at that game. Capt. Bannett was telling me before they all left about Stonewall Jackson telling his men about the passage in the Bible where the South should drive the North in the sea. I told him I hoped I would be at the jumping off place & see the last blue coat go under.

​Cornelia Peake McDonald relates the story of the Letcher home being turned to ashes:

​Mrs. Letcher had consented to entertain two officers at her house, that she had been civilly asked to do. They had spent the night and eaten breakfast with the family, sociably chatting all the while. When they rose from breakfast, one of them, Capt. Berry, informed Mrs. Letcher that he should immediately set fire to her home. He took a bottle of benzine, or some inflammable liquid, and pouring it on the sofas and curtains in the lower rooms, applied a match, and then proceeded up the stairs. Mrs. Letcher ran up stairs and snatching her sleeping baby from the cradle, rushed from the house with it, leaving everything she had to the flames. Lizzy ran upstairs and went into her father's room to secure some of his clothes, and had hung over her arm some of his linen, when Capt. Berry came near her with a lighted match, and set fire to the clothes as they hung on her arm. He then gathered all the family clothing and bedding into a pile in the middle of the room and set fire to them. When I reached the scene, Mrs. Letcher was sitting on a stone in the street with her baby on her lap sleeping and her other little children gathered around. She sat tearless and calm, but it was a pitiable group, sitting there with their burning house for a background to the picture.

These are just two of dozens of diary entries and letters written by the brave, courageous women of the Confederacy. It is now assigned, required reading of my two youngest daughters. The book concludes with the poem, The Confederate Flag
"Requiescat in Pace", by Louise Wigfall Wright:
​

​The hands of our women made it!
'Twas baptized in our mother's tears
And drenched with the blood of our kindred,
While with hope for those four long years,
Across vale and plain we watched it,
Where the red tide of battle rolled
And with tear-dimmed eyes we followed
The wave of each silken fold.
As high o'er our hosts it floated,
Through the dust and din of the fight,
We caught the glint of the spear-head
And the flash of its crimson light!
While the blood of the men who bore it
Flowed fast on the reddened plain,
Till our cry went up in anguish
To God, for our martyred slain!
And we wept, and watched, and waited
By our lonely household fire,
For the mother gave her first born,
And the daughter gave her sire!
And the wife sent forth her husband,
And the maiden her lover sweet;
And our hearts kept time in the silence
To the rhythmic tread of their feet...

​I strongly recommend this remarkable book.