Diary of Emma LeConte

[John Fazio]

Gene:

Thank you for this. I knew nothing of Emma LeConte's diary. As for her attitude re the assassination, it was a common one. One has to consider the context of time and place. There were many in the South, despite such context, who had a more rational view of the matter. Mary Boykin Chesnut, another diarist, for example, referred to the assassination as "maddening" and a "foul murder (that) will bring down worse miseries on us". Later, she referred to Booth as "the madman".

Interestingly, the LeConte diary is the second unknown that has been unearthed for me today. The other is Littleton Washington's Journal. Apparently Washington was the second in command in the Confederate State Department, immediately under Benjamin. I plan to read his Journal as soon as I can get my hands on a hard copy. I understand that it ends with the Dahlgren-Kilpatrick Raid, the pages following apparently having been ripped out by someone, maybe the author himself. That could be very significant from the standpoint of what Washington knew about the Confederate response to the Raid (and to Wistar's Raid too). But it is almost impossible to prove anything by its absence. I keep telling my wife that I needed two lives; one isn't enough to read all I would like to read and experience all I would like to experience. We need a second one anyway to undo all the mistakes made in the first one.

Laurie, thank you for mentioning the stories.

John