Since the archives of the Confederacy were conveniently burned when Richmond was torched, there are few official records of Southern feelings about the war. The most popular version is the diary of Mary Chesnut, wife to Major James Chesnut aide to President Jefferson Davis. Although never intended as an official record, it does give a little insight into the Southern soul, then and now. Her journal starts at the hopeful beginning and ends when all hope is gone. Here are a few excerpts from "A Diary from Dixie" I call "Lady of Grace".
 

Lady of Grace
 
 
     "To be separate forever from those who hate us so. Those who would grapple us to their heartless bosoms with hooks of steel. We got the opprobrium of slavery and they the money from it. The kiss of death for the unwilling bride."
 
     "To look ahead and see the risk to limb and life, home and family. They took it for their country's sake. Ready and willing, come what may." (Referring to Confederate soldiers)
 
     "The Yankees may kill us and lay waste our land for a while, but conquer us - never! We would do all that can be done by pluck and muscle, endurance and dogged courage, dash and red-hot patriotism."
 
     "To ask no more of gods or men than to be left alone in peace. So we are to be exterminated and improved, as the Indian, from the face of the earth.The love of freedom makes us so wicked. We are frank heathens for we hate our enemies and love our friends."
 
     "We have yet to make good our second declaration of independence - Southern independence - from Yankee meddling and Yankee rule."
 
      "Those brave and gay spirits have taken flight, the only flight they know, and their bodies were left dead upon the battlefield. Leaving loving mothers who made no moan, simply turned their faces to the wall and died, broken-hearted. Hearts do break in silence, without a word or a sigh."
 
  "Home they brought their warrior dead wrapped in that very Legion flag he had borne so often in battle with his own hands."
 
     "We have lost nearly all our men. Our best and bravest are under sod. We shall have to wait till another generation grows up. Here we stand, despair in our hearts, with our houses burning over our heads."
 
     "We have no money, but gold and sliver, what are they  when we give up to war our beloved. The cradle and the grave have been robbed by us. We have fought until maimed soldiers, women and children are all that remain."
 
"Our resources were exhausted, and the means of resistance could not be found. Sherman leaves a track fifty miles wide, upon which there is no living thing to be found."
 
     "They have plenty, yet let our men freeze and starve in their prisons. Our captives need not starve if Lincoln would consent to exchange prisoners; but men are nothing to the United States, things to throw away. Their policy is to starve us out. That too is what Shermans' destruction means - to starve us out."
 
     "Columbia is but dust and ashes, burned to the ground. Men, women and children have been left there homeless, houseless, and without one particle of food. Reduced to picking up corn that was left by Shermans' horses on picket grounds and parching it to stay their hunger."
 
     "While Columbia burned, the soldiers tore the bundles of clothes that the poor wretches tried to save from their burning homes, and dashed them back into the flames. They mean to make a clean sweep. They were howling round the fires like demons, these Yankees in their joy and triumph at our destruction."
 
     "There they go, the gay and gallant few, doomed; the last gathering of the flower of Southern pride, to be killed, or worse, to a prison. They march with as airy a tread as if they still believed the world was all on their side,and that there were no Yankee bullets for the unwary. How can a man die better than facing fearful odds!"
 
"Nine-tenths of our army are underground and where is another army to come from? Will they wait until we grow one?"
 
     "To keep the despised and iniquitous South within their borders, as part of their country, they are willing to enlist millions of men at home and abroad,and to spend billions, and we know they do not love fighting per se, nor spending money. They are perfectly willing to have three killed for our one. We hear they have all grown rich from war."
 
     "They are everywhere, these Yankees, like red ants, like the locusts and frogs which were the plagues of Egypt."
 
"We are scattered and stunned, the remnant of heart left alive within us is filled with brotherly hate. We sit and wait until the drunken tailor who rules the United States of America issues a proclamation,and defines our anomalous position."
 
   "The Yankees here say "The black man must go as the red man has gone; this is white mans' country." They were so faithful to us during the war, why should the Yankees reward them, to which the only reply is that it would be by way of punishing rebels."
 
     "Never let me hear that the blood of the brave has been shed in vain! No; it sends a cry down through all time."
 

  What do we say to her? Many generations have come and gone but we are still no closer to freedom. Southern blood has stained many battlefields since then,but not for our freedom. Southern mettle has been proved in countless tests,but not for our nation.