This diary chronicles the defining years in the life of Grace Brown Elmore, one of eight children in a wealthy and influential Columbia, South Carolina, family. Begun just five months into the Civil War, when Elmore was twenty-two, it is a rich personal account of a society in the midst of chaotic change.

At her diary's opening, Elmore had every reason to believe that she would someday marry, bear children, and have a pleasurable life within a network of comparably privileged relatives and friends.

Despite her enduring devotion to the Confederacy, Elmore, who never did marry, found...