Louise Wigfall Wright (1846–1915)
Auteur de a Southern Girl in '61: The War-Time Memories of a Confederate Senator's Daughter, 1861-1865
A propos de l'auteur
Œuvres de Louise Wigfall Wright
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Nom canonique
- Wright, Louise Wigfall
- Date de naissance
- 1846-12-08
- Date de décès
- 1915-03-07
- Lieu de sépulture
- Owings Mills Baltimore County Maryland, USA
- Sexe
- female
- Professions
- memoirist
- Courte biographie
- Wife of Judge D. Giraud Wright. Louise "Luly" Wigfall was the daughter of Senator and General Louis Trezevant Wigfall, the fire-eating secessionist Texas senator, and Charlotte Maria Cross. Born in Rhode Island and raised in Texas, she lived in the Confederate capital during the Civil War and is mentioned frequently in Mary Chestnut's famous "Diary from Dixie" where she was briefly linked romantically with General John Bell Hood. After the war, she exiled with her family to London before returning to the states and marrying Daniel Giraud Wright in 1871. She was a founding member of the Maryland chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy, and a staunch defender of the "Lost Cause." In 1905 she published a well-received best-selling memoir of her war experiences titled "A Southern Girl in '61" which even today is an often cited and quoted reference to life inside the Confederate circles of power. She entertained lavishly and was at the pinnacle of Baltimore high society. Her only child was attorney W.H. De Courcy Wright. She was injured in an automobile accident which killed her only grandson and died nine months later of heart trouble at her home in Baltimore. Her death certificate listed her occupation as "Lady."
Membres
Critiques
Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 5
- Membres
- 21
- Popularité
- #570,576
- Évaluation
- 3.5
- Critiques
- 2
- ISBN
- 7
I mention all that because much of this book consists of letters from the Wigfall family archives, including many between Wigfall and Johnston and a few from Davis.
Louise Wright was 15 at the outbreak of the war, so this book covers years of her late teens. The memoir sections of the book, then, give us the point of view of a young girl of Richmond society. Wright's memories of those years, as rendered through several decades of time (the book was written and first published in 1905) are certainly interesting, though of fairly limited scope and seen through a rather romantic haze of sentiment for the "glorious lost cause."
The letters to and from Wright and her father and, especially her brother, a young officer at the front throughout the war, are more interesting, all in all. The letters involving her father give a rather one-sided, but still illuminating, picture of some of the internal politics of the Confederate government.
Wright was an unapologetic defender of slavery, even in 1905, when these memoirs were written. Happily, there is only one brief mention of this topic. There is one humorous insight into Wright's patrician upbringing and status early on, however. Speaking of a time spent in Washington before the war, Wright says (and remember this is being written in 1905):
"The winter of '60 saw us in Washington with our quarters changed to Wormley's. This was more than forty years ago and was in the dawn of Wormley's fame as a caterer. . . . I can recall now, in these degenerate times of discomfort and bad servants, the admirable service rendered . . ."… (plus d'informations)