In December of 1861, Julia LeGrand of New Orleans began a journal that she would keep for three years. Her first entries reveal her enthusiasm for the Civil War, as she and her sisters cut up their flannel nightgowns to make her brother, on active duty with General Lee's army in Virginia, a uniform. But by 1863, LeGrand's enthusiasm has waned. New Orleans had fallen to the Yankees, and she felt only a "dull and heavy anxiety.... We are leading the lives that women have led since Troy fell; wearing away time with memories, regrets, and fear, alternating fits of suppression, with flights imaginary to the red fields where great principles are contended for, lost and won, while men more privileged are abroad and astir, making name and fortune and helping to make a nation...."

 LeGrand ended her journal before the defeat of the Confederacy, but her growing discouragement with the Lost Cause was shared by most Southerners and especially by women. Her private thoughts provide modern students of the Civil War with evidence of the faltering morale of Southerners as their rebellion failed. And it is through such firsthand accounts that we gain an intimate connection with those who lived through the war.

 LeGrand's journal is only one of at least seventy-five similar Civil War memoirs in Goucher's Passano Collection; a few of them are listed below. Not only are these primary sources essential teaching aids, but often mesmerize students whose historical sensibilities are dulled by textbooks. The Passano Collection and Julia LeGrand's journal provide insight into the role of women during a war in which military movements too often overshadow the essential activities of the homefront.
 
 

	-- Jean Harvey Baker '61, professor of history, and author of several books on the Civil War, including the highly acclaimed Mary Todd Lincoln: a Biography

 Boykin, Laura Nisbet. Shinplasters and Homespun: The Diary of Laura Nisbet Boykin. c1975.

 Chesnut, Mary Boykin Miller. The Private Mary Chesnut: The Unpublished Civil War Diaries. 1984.

 Clemson, Floride. A Rebel Came Home: The Diary of Floride Clemson Tells Of Her Wartime Adventures in Yankeeland, 1863-64, Her Trip Home to South Carolina, and Life In the South During the Last Few Months of the Civil War and the Year Following. 1961.

 Frobel, Anne S. The Civil War Diary of Anne S. Frobel of Wilton Hill in Virginia. 1986.

 Habersham, Josephine Clay. Ebb Tide: As Seen Through the Diary of Josephine Clay Habersham, 1863. 1958.

 Holmes, Emma. The Diary of Miss Emma Holmes, 1861-1866. c1979.

 Jones, Mary Sharpe. Yankees A'coming: One Month's Experience During the Invasion of Liberty County, Georgia, 1864-1865. 1959.

 Lumpkin, Martha Neville. "Dear Darling Loulie": Letters of Cordelia Lewis Scales to Loulie W. Irby During and After the War Between the States. 1955.

 Pickett, George E. The Heart of a Soldier as Revealed in the Intimate Letters of Genl. George E. Pickett. c1913.

 Pender, William Dorsey. The General to His Lady: the Civil War Letters of William Dorsey Pender to Fanny Pender. [1965].

 Ripley, Eliza Moore Chinn McHatton. From Flag to Flag: a Woman's Adventures and Experiences in the South During the War, in Mexico, and in Cuba. 1889.