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“Economy Rules the Day:”
The Civil War Sacrifices of Judith Walker McGuire
by Tim Sheehan

Table of Contents | Introduction | Conclusion | Endnotes | Printable HTML version | Images | Related Web Resources

Introduction

During the first year of the Civil War, Judith McGuire observed that “economy rules the day” for Virginians once accustomed to the finest luxuries. At this time, Confederate patriots promoted the restraint of personal indulgence so that soldiers could be supplied with scarce goods. McGuire praised women for their economizing efforts. “I do not believe there is a woman among us who would not give up everything but the bare necessities of life for the good of our cause.” (1) Judith McGuire’s Diary of a Southern Refugee heralds the various contributions women made for the Confederacy’s war effort.

Most of the South’s middle to upper class women embraced slavery. Judith McGuire’s family possessed slaves. The Diary’s introduction contains McGuire’s belief that “the fairest land, the purest social circle, the noblest race of men, and the happiest people,” blessed the antebellum South all due to slavery. (2) Scholarship on this topic has concluded slaveholding women dreaded emancipation. Slavery provided wealth, social status, and freedom from menial household labor. Whereas the United States government was a perceived threat to slavery, the formation of the Confederate government was seen as slavery’s savoir. As a result, these women supported the Confederacy. In identifying with this cause, women contributed via gender roles typical of the times. Society regarded sewing, bringing food and cheer to soldiers, and, to a minor extent, visiting the wounded as acceptable wartime functions for women. (3)

Judith McGuire wanted to provide any available spare time to these deeds. However, the wartime environment limited such participation. She lived through the entire war as a refugee. After attempting to conserve the family income by home manufacture, employment outside of the home had to be sought out of economic necessity. Time for the soldiers became substituted by time for earning money. Reading the Diary gives one the impression that Judith McGuire aspired to play the role expected of the Confederacy’s women. To her dismay, economic necessity hindered that role.

In the Diary’s introduction, Judith McGuire claims she only intended her family to read her wartime journal, not the general public. Others encouraged her to have it published to show the wartime suffering of the South. (4) The original diary McGuire kept during the Civil War is not known to be in existence. (5) Therefore, whatever content McGuire added or subtracted from her original record of events is unknown. The best means to verify McGuire’s published testimony of her wartime experience is to rely on primary sources. Newspapers, government records, and the diaries and letters of other contemporaries of McGuire are tools used to confirm McGuire’s account.

©2005-2008 Tim Sheehan tim@historynut.info

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This page last updated 1 January 2008