There is much more to the diary of fifty-one-year-old Emma Mordecai than first meets the eye. For the historian, the document does not seem all that promising, covering a little over a year at the end of the Civil War, often recounting ordinary domestic affairs along with trips back and forth between the Confederate capital in Richmond and the home of her sickly sister-in-law, Rosina Mordecai. But the careful reader will appreciate how even mundane details complement the story of the war as experienced by Emma and Rosina.
At the beginning of a long and invaluable introduction to the diary, Dianne Ashton described Emma Mordecai as “an entirely typical white, middle-class slave-owning Southern woman” with all the expected “assumptions and attitudes,” especially about race. But one striking difference with most diaries kept by women in the Confederacy was that Mordecai was Jewish. Although several members of her family had married Christians and even converted, Mordecai remained loyal to her faith. She read the Hebrew scriptures, prayed, and observed the holy days, but recorded no examples of antisemitism.
Mordecai’s diary recounts life at Rosewood, five miles north of Richmond, as the war steadily intrudes. She initially assumed that slaves would loyally serve the family regardless of military incursions or federal promises of emancipation. Emma and Rosina saw themselves as humane slaveholders and thus set themselves up for a painful disillusionment as the institution begins to crumble.
Mordecai began her diary on the eve of the Overland Campaign and continued until a little over a month after Robert E. Lee’s surrender. Entries mention war news, though briefly, and there are frequent references to the comings and goings of her relatives in the army. The women often heard artillery fire. There are, of course, the usual rumors, and the nearby presence of Yankee troops is mentioned as the two women hid meat and other valuables. Mordecai was a committed Confederate, and her faith in the cause did not falter. Even knitting became “the usual work of Confederate women” (186). She and Rosina carried buttermilk and other supplies to the soldiers in hospitals. Her niece Augusta fantasized about being a man and joining her brother in camp. Emma idealized the “brave deeds done, & their consequent sufferings” of “pure highminded, noble men!” (101). When a Jewish soldier is killed near Petersburg, Emma deemed him “a true Israelite without guile—a soldier of the Lord & a soldier of the South” (151).
By the summer of 1864, there were growing signs of slave disaffection, including runaways. Emma writes of hospitals filled with the wounded, solders suffering from heat and drought, and a troublesome cavalry camp nearby. As for the Yankees, they are simply barbaric invaders. Short supplies and rising prices meant that cooking required a resort to “Confederate” makeshifts.
In a letter written near war’s end, with bad news coming from so many directions, Emma suggests that the faith of even devoted Confederates had not been strong enough. Open defiance by once seemingly loyal slaves, the presence of Black troops, and the shock of Lee’s surrender all bespoke a once comfortable world turned upside down.
Emma Mordecai transcribed her diary in 1886 and occasionally added clarifying comments; mice and insects had destroyed those parts of the diary that ran from late December 1864 to mid-April 1865. Emma inserted two letters to fill in this gap. For this edition, Melissa R. Klopper completed the work begun by the late Dianne Ashton, who had decided against annotating the diary. It is therefore up to the reader to connect the diary entries to specific military engagements and other wartime events. A family tree would have been useful in keeping names straight, but fortunately there is a good subject index.
Emma Mordecai’s diary is a valuable addition to southern women’s history, to Confederate history, and to Jewish history that will prove rewarding to general readers and researchers alike.
George C. Rable is Professor of History, Emeritus, at the University of Alabama. His most recent book is Conflict of Command: George McClellan, Abraham Lincoln, and the Politics of War, which won the Barondess/Lincoln Award and the Daniel M. and Marilyn W. Laney Prize.
