A Refugee at Hanover Tavern

Book excerpt: An account of life on the home front written by a Southern woman trying to survive the daily struggles of the Civil War. The Hanover Tavern outside Richmond was a place of refuge during the Civil War. Life at the Tavern was not always safe as residents weathered frequent Union cavalry raids on nearby railroads, bridges, and farms. Margaret Copland Brown Wight and some of her family braved the war at the Tavern from 1862 until 1865 in the company of a small community of refugees. She kept a diary to document each hardship and every blessing—a day of rain after weeks of drought, news of her sons fighting in the Confederate armies, or word from her daughter caught behind enemy lines. Wight’s diary, discovered more than a century after the war, is a vital voice from a time of tumult. Join the Hanover Tavern Foundation as the diary is presented here for the first time. Includes photos