dear ones at the front and anxiety about them, Southern
women would have been little disturbed in their routine of household
duties. But presently the roar of cannon draws near, actual danger is
experienced in some cases, suffering and privation must be accepted in
all. Thenceforth, the women are part of the war; there may be
interludes of plantation life momentarily secure from bullets and from
oppression, yet the cloud is felt hanging ever lower and blacker.
Gradually, the writer's gay spirit fails; an injury to her spine, for
which adequate medical care cannot be found in the Confederacy, and the
condition of her mother, all but starving at Clinton, drive these
Southern women to the protection of a Union relative in New Orleans.
The hated Eagle Oath must be taken, the beloved Confederacy must be
renounced at least in words. Entries in the Diary become briefer and
briefer, yet are sustained unto the bitter end, when the deaths of two
brothers, and the crash of the Lost Cause, are told with the tragic
reserve of a broken heart.

* * * * *

I have alluded to passages omitted because too personal. That the
clearness of the narrative may not suffer, I hope to be pardoned for
explaining briefly, here, the position of Sarah Morgan's family at the
outbreak of the Civil War.

Her father, Judge Thomas Gibbes Morgan, had been Collector of the Port
of New Orleans, and in 1861 was Judge of the District Court of the
Parish of Baton Rouge. In complete sympathy with Southern rights, he
disapproved of Secession as a movement fomented by hotheads on both
sides, but he declared for it when his State so decided. He died at his
home in Baton Rouge in November, 1861, before the arrival of Farragut's
fleet.

Judge Thomas Gibbes Morgan's eldest son, Philip Hickey Morgan, was also
a Judge, of the Second District Court of the Parish of Orleans. Judge
P. H. Morgan (alluded to as "Brother" and his wife as "Sister"
throughout the Diary) disapproved of Secession like his father, but did
not stand by his State. He declared himself for the Union, and remained
in New Orleans when the Federals took possession, but refused to bear
arms against his brothers and friends. His position enabled him to
render signal services to many Confederate prisoners suffering under
Butler's rule. And it was a conversation of his with President Hayes,
when he told the full, unprejudiced truth about the Dual Government and
th