Record Data
Source citation
Cornelia Peake McDonald, A Woman's Civil War: A Diary, with Reminiscences of the War, from March 1862, ed. Minrose C. Gwin (New York: Gramercy Books, 2003), 82-83.
Type
Diary
Date Certainty
Exact
Transcriber
Transcription adapted from A Woman's Civil War: A Diary, with Reminiscences of the War, from March 1862 (2003), edited by Minrose C. Gwin
Adapted by Don Sailer, Dickinson College
Transcription date
Transcription
The following transcript has been adapted from A Woman's Civil War: A Diary, with Reminiscences of the War, from March 1862 (2003).
[October] 13th - A little soldier from the Maryland camp came this evening – a mere boy, but with his black eyes full of fire, eagerness to join the flag. He had just come from Paris, France, where his family are living, to join the Maryland line. He said his father wished him to come; did not think it honourable to remain in a foreign land while Maryland struggled for her freedom. His mother was not so anxious.
He spoke gaily and enthusiastically of the life in the camp, and the battles he expected to take part in; and I did not like to be a prophet of evil, and tell him about the dark side of war that I had seen. So he talked on about Maryland, and I asked him what he would do if, when the Confederacy was established, Maryland was left in the hands of his enemies.
“They cannot keep her,” he said. “No peace will be made that leaves her with the North.”
He spoke gaily and enthusiastically of the life in the camp, and the battles he expected to take part in; and I did not like to be a prophet of evil, and tell him about the dark side of war that I had seen. So he talked on about Maryland, and I asked him what he would do if, when the Confederacy was established, Maryland was left in the hands of his enemies.
“They cannot keep her,” he said. “No peace will be made that leaves her with the North.”
