In the Shadow of the Enemy: The Civil War Journal of
Ida Powell Dulany was born in 1836. In the Virginia Piedmont region where she grew up, the ideas of Southern hospitality and obligations to family, church and the community were taken seriously. She was married at19 and had three children by the time she was23. Her marriage to Hal Dulany was atypical, especially since he treated her as an equal partner due to her intelligence, refinement and practical methods of household management. When Hal joined the Confederate Army, Ida became the overseer of their estate, Oakley. This background sets the stage for the journey through Ida’s diary. Her journal entries describe the many challenges commonly encountered by middle- and upper-class Southerners. Wealthier people had the potential to lose more from both a monetary and societal viewpoint. This diary provides a unique look into the personal thoughts, actions and ideas of someone who wrote not to become famous, but simply to document decisions that were made and why. Ida’s religious convictions forbade her from making Sunday journal entries. Sometimes two or three days of her life were included in a single entry because there simply wasn’t enough time to do everything all at once. Not only was Ida the estate’s key decision-maker, but she also had social responsibilities in the community. In addition to overseeing the estate and fulfilling her social obligations, she was a mother and educator to her three young children and to various family members who spent time there. This diary has two unique editing additions that prove very valuable. The editors provided Civil War timeline charts enabling readers to better understand the context of Ida’s writings. The second addition is a collection of very informative appendices that provide a significant amount of extra information related to the Dulany family and estate that were not included in the actual diary. However, one aspect of this work falls short of this reviewer’s expectations. Normally the goal of publishing a diary is to shed new light on daily life or dispel myths regarding the historiography of the time period. This work does not accomplish either of these goals. Unlike Winchester Divided, about women in Virginia, this diary does not uncover new or different problems or solutions for facing hardships. Although this journal relates with excellent detail the trials faced by many Southern families after the war, it only reiterates experiences many other women of middle- and upper-class society faced, such as reintegrating the soldier back into civilian family life, dealing with changes in gender roles and overcoming medical or physical limitations. Upon his return, Hal suffered from drinking problems. He was not unlike others who dealt with drug-related addictions, alcohol problems or what has become known today as post-combat traumatic stress syndrome. In light of the diary’s expense and failure to break new ground, this reviewer has some reservations about recommending this work. Reviewer: Richard J. Blumberg Richard J. Blumberg has a master’s degree with honors in Civil War studies. He is past president of the Houston Civil War Round Table and is a speaker for that group and the Society of Women in the Civil War. He also reviews books for the Blue and Gray Education Society.
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Illustrated, timeline charts, endnotes, appendices, index, 271 pp., 2009, University of Tennessee Press,