A Rebel Wife in Texas: The Diary and Letters of Elizabeth Scott Neblett, 1852-1864

A Rebel Wife in Texas allows readers to glimpse the more intimate relations between a man and a woman during the nineteenth century. The frankness with which Lizzie Neblett discusses birth control and childbearing makes this a truly fascinating collection of letters. More than the writings of a soldier’s wife, these letters and diary entries tell of a planter-class, slave-owning woman frustrated with the opportunities denied her, with society’s expectations of her, and with the burdens of child-rearing and of running the plantation when her husband was at war. These memoirs are a unique look at nineteenth-century southern culture, slave relations, gender issues, and the Civil War.