When Will This Cruel War Be Over?

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Denenberg, Barry. When Will This Cruel War Be Over? The Civil War Diary of Emma Simpson, Gordonsville, Virginia, 1864. New York: Scholastic, 1996.

Emma Simpson is a young white woman on a Virginia plantation. In the course of the year 1864 she loses her mother, several neighbors, and most of the infrastructure that sustains her life. The Simpsons have always been humane masters, and their slaves remain loyal (improbably) even when the Union lines reach the Simpson home. But mortality and stress take their toll on the ruling class of the Confederacy.

An entry in the popular "Dear America" series of books presented as diaries by witnesses to historical events; see also A Light in the Storm.

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