I Thank the Lord I Am Not a YA

In December 1864, twenty-four year-old Eliza Frances ("Fanny") Andrews began a journal that she would maintain through August 1865. Although overshadowed by Mary Boykin Chesnut's DIARY FROM DIXIE, Miss Andrews's WAR-TIME JOURNAL OF A GEORGIA GIRL surely ranks among the most observant and intelligent wartime memoirs by a Southern woman. Frances was born into a well-to-do Georgia family, received a strong education, and was raised to become a young woman able to support herself by writing for magazines and newspapers. Late in life, probably in the early 1900s, Fanny prepared her journal for publication. For a few years after the war Miss Andrews kept another diary (or rather an extension of her first one) and excerpted sections are printed herein. Chosen are those passages most expressive of her Confederate patriotism, Southern pride (even in defeat), and continued excoriation of Yankees.