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THE FOLLOWING EXTRACT IS FROM RECOLLECTIONS, GRAVE AND GAY (New York: Scribners, 1911), the memoirs of Constance Cary Harrison (1843-1 920), a Confederate sympathizer, socialite, and author, who was married to Burton Norvell Harrison (1838-1904) , a lawyer and the private secretary to President Jefferson Davis. After the Civil War, Harrison was imprisoned until 1866, when his wife was able to negotiate his release. He went on to become an envoy to Santo Domingo in 1872, and later, secretary of the New York City Rapid Transit Commission. In her memoir Cary Harrison recalls her literary efforts during the war, and she devotes special attention to the diary of the legendary editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, John Reuben Thompson, and in particular to his visits to the Carlyles.
DRS and BEK
I suppose, in view of the amount of ink-splashing afterward perpetrated, I may be excused for saying that before this time I had begun to write stories, verses, and sketches which the editors of various war papers flattered me by consenting to print. The Southern Illustrated News, the "Best Family Journal in the Confederacy," edited by Messrs. Ayers and Wade, had for its "regular contributors" Messrs. John R. Thompson, John Esten Cooke, Harry Timrod, James Barron Hope, and Paul H. Hayne, certainly a list of important and charming writers. The News, "sent to all parts of the Confederacy at ten dollars a year," paid me my first literary checks. The paper on which it was printed was yellow and coarse, and the illustrations, mainly of generals in the field, made those hopes of our nation look like brigands and cutthroats of the deepest dye. The Magnolia Weekly, "A Home Journal of Literature and General News," was the other patron of my budding literary ambition. Both of these weeklies struggled under the drawback of having the military authorities of Richmond descend at any moment and drag off editors, printers, engravers, and contributors to delve into the mud of trenches or to stand guard around the prisons and bridges of the Confederate capital. At that peremptory call of the alarm bell Richmond learned to know so well, the entire staff of the two periodicals often had to forsake office duty and be absent for an indefinite...