The American Civil War - This Mighty Scourge of War

Portrait of a civilian 99

wound at Seven Pines. The arrival of Federal
troops opposite Fredericksburg in April 1862
proved to be almost anticlimactic. 'One can
scarcely realize that the enemy are so near
and that we are in their hands,' wrote Maury.
'Every thing is so quiet. The stores have been
closed for the last three days and the streets
are deserted except by the negroes.' A Union
band's playing 'Yankee Doodle' and 'The Star
Spangled Banner' on the night of 20 April
spurred thoughts of Betty's earlier loyalties.
'The old tunes brought back recollections of
the old love for them,' she wrote. 'It was a
sad and painful feeling.'

Part of the pain derived from Betty's loss
of her privileged pre-war economic
circumstances. As a member of the South's
slaveholding class, she had wanted for little

and shouldered no burden of work. Her

mother commented in March 1862 about

missing 'the old Union sometimes. We never

felt any of the evils of it and the advantages

of being an independent nation will not be

felt in our life time.' Betty reflected on her

mother's statements in her diary entry for

that day: 'I know what the answer is - that it

Refugees from the Battle of Fredericksburg

huddle around a fire in this 1865 painting by

David English Henderson. Betty Maury undoubtedly

knew many of the people who fled the city as

Burnside's army massed across the Rappahannock

river in late November 1862. Robert E. Lee

helped some of the civilians leave their homes.

1 was moving out the women & children

all last night & today.' he wrote to his wife on

22 November. 'It was a piteous sight.'(Gettysburg

National Military Park. National Park Service)