Beth Harris, Special Collections Librarian at WRL, has written a great article about the Civil war-era diary of a Hollins student. The diary is in the Hollins Archives. To read the article in the current issue of Hollins’ own alumnae magazine, click here.
Excerpt: “Eventually the action moved closer to home and Virginia herself became a refugee in June 1864. While staying with a neighbor, Mr. Johnson, they received news that the Yankees had reached Liberty [now called Bedford]. They saddled their horses and rode twenty-five miles before they found refuge for a night in a house near the Staunton River. At one point it seemed safe to return home, but they received more frightening news: “About nightfall a gentleman came in & said that the Yankees were at the Mill some two or more miles from here—another said they had shot the Miller, captured some others & he was trying to escape by another road, that we might escape them at any time. We were afraid to sleep. I had jewels & money concealed about my person and those we watched the whole night for the midnight assassin, for so they seemed to me.” “