A Refugee at Hanover Tavern: The Civil War Diary of Margaret Wight

by Shirley A. Haas (Editor), Dale Paige Talley (Editor), Robert E.L. Krick (Foreword)

The Hanover Tavern outside Richmond was a place of refuge during the Civil War. Life at the Tavern was not always safe as residents weathered frequent Union cavalry raids on nearby railroads, bridges and farms. Margaret Copland Brown Wight and some of her family braved the war at the Tavern from 1862 until 1865 in the company of a small community of refugees. She kept a diary to document each hardship and every blessing--a day of rain after weeks of drought, news of her sons fighting in the Confederate armies or word from her daughter caught behind enemy lines. Wight's diary, discovered more than a century after the war, is a vital voice from a time of tumult. Join The Hanover Tavern Foundation as the diary is presented here for the first time.

Genres: Civil War, History

225 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 27, 2013

Reviews

[Joyce M. Tice]

Excellent introductory material and analysis, family background, environment, very thorough including photos of the places. Actual diary does not start until page 137. Main concern with family issues and economics. Mentions escalating prices continually. Most interesting element is her making and selling envelopes and thereby managing to pay board.

[Bobby]

Civil War Diarist

Good recognition of circumstances that occurred in the South during the war. Only problem was the genealogical history of the family. Very lengthy and a bit hard to follow.
When we finally get to the diary I was in awe reading a day to day telling of the War from a Southerner's perspective. The optimism expressed daily was a far cry from the realities of how the South was slowly falling.

[Paulette Benson]

Wonderful and informative

At first I was not thrilled about the Authors narrative but once I started reading the actual diary my opinion changed

[Susan Molloy]

🖊 My first comment out of the box regarding this book is that I am impressed with the deep research conducted by Shirley A. Haas in regard to diarist Margaret Wight's American Civil War era diary. There is much to learn from the research, including her family tree information, Confederate government management, facts about battles, and the like. Margaret Wight’s actual retyped diary appears at 54% into the book; it is short, some of her entries are brief, yet the reader will gain another viewpoint of the war and civilian life in the South. The period black and white photographs round out this book very well, and there are a few photographs of the diarist’s children to admire. Margaret Wight wrote her diary in three volumes, and Haas describes each volume's appearance well. Misspellings and cross outs were retained, and clarifications were added in brackets where necessary for the reader's greater understanding.
📙 This diary was written between 1863-78, and it was published with histories and editorial comments in 2013.

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🔲 Excerpts of note:
Margaret Wight begins:

🔹Jan 1st (1863) I only regret that I did not commence this earlier in life as it might have afforded some gratification to my children and grandchildren to read at some future day a record of the past. I shall not confine myself to family matters, but notice briefly the principal events that may occur in this most unhappy contest, which is now at its highth, between the two sections of our once happy Country. It is difficult to imagine how we are to carry it on another year or how we are to live. Corn is now selling at $15 per barrel Flour $25. Hams $1 per pound Turkeys $12 a piece Ladies shoes $18 to 20. Gentleman’s Boots $50. Calico & cottons from $1.75 to 2.50 a yard and anything else that can be got, in proportion.

About rioting:

🔸A Mob of women assembled on the Square and from there march to the different stores on Main St on the pretense of [MS. illegible strikethrough] seizing the necessaries of life for which they were starving but it proved to be a wholesale robbery–taking every thing they could lay their hands on even from the Jeweller.

Regarding the assassination of Abraham Lincoln:

This murder of Lincoln will cause us much sorrow I fear. They seemed from policy inclined to be lenient to us but now we have nothing to expect but the hardest terms.
Jan 22 The papers filled with Lincoln’s assassination. And the Southern government is getting the credit of it but it was no doubt the work of a few desperate characters . . .

In the epilogue:

🔹The Yellow fever is raging in New Orleans and other Southern cities. The mortality is fearful a large proportion of those who die are children. We can’t be thankful enough that we are spared this dreadful scourge. The accounts are heartrending. May our Merciful Father speedily remove this terrible disease from those poor suffering people

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