General William Tecumseh Sherman said of Confederate womanhood: "You women are the toughest set I ever knew. The men would have given up long ago but for you. I believe you would keep this war up for thirty years." Yet unlike many collections penned for the Daughters of the Confederacy, this book has a conciliatory tone. Yes, it includes accounts of suffering and bitterness. But the preface states the authors "do not desire to keep alive sectional bitterness or revive memories which have lain dormant for half a century." What they did intend was to record the sacrifices and efforts made by women of the south during the war. One of the most moving sections of the book is at the end. It is a first-hand recounting of the gathering on the field of Gettysburg of the veterans of both sides, fifty years after the battle.