Another Year Finds Me in Texas: The Civil War Diary of Lucy Pier Stevens

by Vicki Adams Tongate

Overview

Lucy Pier Stevens, a twenty-one-year-old woman from Ohio, began a visit to her aunt’s family near Bellville, Texas, on Christmas Day, 1859. Little did she know how drastically her life would change on April 4, 1861, when the outbreak of the Civil War made returning home impossible. Stranded in enemy territory for the duration of the war, how would she reconcile her Northern upbringing with the Southern sentiments surrounding her?

Lucy Stevens’s diary—one of few women’s diaries from Civil War-era Texas and the only one written by a Northerner—offers a unique perspective on daily life at the fringes of America’s bloodiest conflict. An articulate, educated, and keen observer, Stevens took note seemingly of everything—the weather, illnesses, food shortages, parties, church attendance, chores, schools, childbirth, death, the family’s slaves, and political and military news. As she confided her private thoughts to her journal, she unwittingly revealed how her love for her Texas family and the Confederate soldier boys she came to care for blurred her loyalties, even as she continued to long for her home in Ohio. Showing how the ties of heritage, kinship, friendship, and community transcended the sharpest division in US history, this rare diary and Vicki Adams Tongate’s insightful historical commentary on it provide a trove of information on women’s history, Texas history, and Civil War history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781477324677
Publisher:	University of Texas Press
Publication date:	10/05/2021
Pages:	382
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Vicki Adams Tongate spent twenty years at Southern Methodist University, teaching and researching the Lucy Pier Stevens diary. She has now retired and lives in Fort Worth, Texas.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Editorial Practices
Map of Texas
Dramatis Personae
Timeline

Introduction. Lucy: Herself, Her Family, Her Friends
    Her Texas World
    Her Diary
Chapter 1. January 1863
Chapter 2. February 1863
Chapter 3. March 1863
Chapter 4. April-May 1863
Chapter 5. June-July 1863
Chapter 6. August-September 1863
Chapter 7. October-December 1863
Chapter 8. January-February 1864
Chapter 9. March-April 1864
Chapter 10. May-June 1864
Chapter 11. July-September 1864
Chapter 12. October-December 1864
Chapter 13. January 1865
Chapter 14. February-March 1865
Chapter 15. April 1-16, 1865
Chapter 16. April 17-May 4, 1865
Lucy: Her World after Texas

Bibliography
Index
 

What People are Saying About This

Catherine Clinton

Another Year Finds Me in Texas is a charming Civil War diary of a young Ohio woman, trapped in the Lone Star state for the war’s duration. From epidemics to love triangles, from births to funerals, Lucy Pier Stevens’s journal of the wartime South makes for fascinating reading. For scholars and students alike, Vicki Tongate’s attentive narration provides the fullest possible contextualization for Stevens’s personal account—and brings to life the human dramas reflected in this critical era.

Gary W. Gallagher

Lucy Pier Stevens’s diary illuminates the workings of a slaveholding household, the ebb and flow of civilian morale, the ways in which Texas stood apart from the rest of the Confederacy, and the reading habits of a literate family, among many other things. The diary’s immediacy and rich detail recommend it to anyone interested in the southern home front during the final years of a profoundly disruptive crisis.

Editorial Reviews

A rich interpretation by Tongate of a volatile period in Texas history witnessed by a unique and engaging diarist.

Journal of Southern History

Tongate has done a masterful job of editing.

Texas Books in Review

A work of exhaustive research and devoted scholarship . . . and a delightful and informative read.

Civil War Book Review

A valuable look at the daily lives of women, of a Texas community, and of the Civil War home front.

Southwestern Historical Quarterly