past precedents

Today through Saturday I have the unique opportunity to assist as a docent and guide at the re-enactment of the raids of Gen. Edward Potter at Spring Hill, near Stateburg (Sumter), South Carolina. Dr. David Decker, professor of history at USC-Sumter (SC), has over the past two years done a remarkable amount of work in preparation for the first re-enactment of the late April 1865 skirmishes between confederate and yankee around the Stateburg area.

Overview of Events this week for schools and the public:

http://www.uscsu.sc.edu/special/pottersraid.shtml

Official Potter's Raid Site:

www.pottersraid.com

In my own preparation for this event I have been brushing up my rusty knowledge of the roles that southern women played both before and during the War. Some recommended resources:

Books containing a significant amount of primary resources reprinted from journals, diaries, letters and period articles:

The War the Women Lived: Female Voices from the Confederate South, by Walter Sullivan

Motherhood in the Old South, by Sally G. McMillen

Within the Plantation Household, by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese

The Plantation Mistress, by Catherine Clinton

Mary's World, (studies of the journals and letters of Mary Motte Alston Pringle), by Richard N. Cote

Your Affectionate Daughter, Isabella (studies of the journals and letters of Isabella Torrance Reid), by Ann Williams

Journal of a Residence on a Southern Plantation (journal & letters with post-war commentary and memoirs), Fanny Kemble Butler

When I can Read my Title Clear, by Janet Duitsman Cornelius

Reprinted period journals, diaries, letters, with or without editor commentary:

Growing up in the 1850s: the Journal of Agnes Lee, Mary Custis Lee deButts, ed.

Diary from Dixie, by Mary Chesnut

A Blockaded Family, by Parthenia Hague

The Diary of Clarissa Adger Bowen

Sarah Morgan: the Civil War Diary of a Southern Woman, Charles East, ed.

Journal of a Secesh Lady: the Diary of Catherine Devereux Edmondston 1860-1866

Before Freedom, When I Can Just Remember: 27 Oral Histories of former South Carolina Slaves, Belinda Hurmence, ed.

Long Ago at Liberty Hill, by Mary Ellen Cunningham

Studying the ruminations and outpourings of heart in these pages paints an overwhelming picture of a society's reluctance to say goodbye, of holding on to the past, of carrying bits of remembered happiness forward into the future, and a reticence toward accepting blatantly necessary change, whether out of respect and love for what was good, or out of a lack of understanding of how to separate and preserve the good from the bad. Something we've been hearing alot of in the past week. Mayhap there is something to be learned here.... I'll be listening for it, this weekend.