March 18, 1862.—There has been unusual gayety in this little village the past few days. The ladies from the surrounding plantations went to work to get up a festival to equip the new company. As Annie and myself are both brides recently from the city, requisition was made upon us for engravings, costumes, music, garlands, and so forth. Annie’s heart was in the work; not so with me. Nevertheless, my pretty things were captured, and shone with just as good a grace last evening as if willingly lent. The ball was a merry one. One of the songs sung was “Nellie Gray,” in which the most distressing feature of slavery is bewailed so pitifully. To sing this at a festival for raising money to clothe soldiers fighting to perpetuate that very thing was strange.
Note: To protect Mrs. Miller’s job as a teacher in post-civil war New Orleans, her diary was published anonymously, edited by G. W. Cable, names were changed and initials were generally used instead of full names—and even the initials differed from the real person’s initials. (Read Dora Richards Miller’s biographical sketch.)