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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.

As the Civil War raged, Confederate brigadier general J.E.B. Stuart entrusted a secret album to Laura Ratcliffe, a young girl in Fairfax County, "as a token of his high appreciation of her patriotism, admiration of her virtues, and pledge of his lasting esteem." A devoted Southerner, Laura provided a safe haven for Rebel forces, along with intelligence gathered from passing Union soldiers. Ratcliffe's book contains four poems and forty undated signatures: twenty-six of Confederate officers and soldiers and fourteen of loyal Confederate civilians. In A Southern Spy in Northern Virginia, Charles V. Mauro uncovers the mystery behind this album, identifying who the soldiers were and when they could have signed its pages. The result is a fascinating look at the covert lives and relationships of civilians and soldiers during the war, kept hidden until now.