Facsimile Reprint

Originally published 1869

In 1860 Sallie A. Brock, as she was usually known, was a tutor in a household in King and Queen County. At the outbreak of the Civil War she returned to her parents in Richmond. Brock's two brothers served as doctors for the Confederate army, and she contributed to the cause herself by nursing, knitting, and rolling bandages. She was acutely aware of the war's effect on the residents of the city. Brock experienced the anxiety of the average citizen forced to learn about political and military situations through a combination of unreliable rumors and newspaper reports. After her mother died in 1864, she took charge of her father's household.