“Social Life in Richmond During the War”,University of Virginia Special Collections,Tuesday

Writing in a romantic vein, Edward M. Alfriend describes the stoic cheerfulness of the women who endured the privations of life in Richmond during the Civil War in an article published in Cosmopolitan magazine in 1891. Titled "Social Life in Richmond During the War," the article recalls that, as the conflict progressed, entertainments became known as "starvation parties" at which neither food nor drink was served due to wartime shortages. Jewelry was largely dispensed with "because the women of the South had given their jewels to the Confederate cause." And mothers who had sent their sons off to war remained committed to the cause, "illustrating … the heroism of the Spartan mother who, when she gave her son his shield, told him to return with or on it."