October 1863Julia Fanning Breckenridge
Housewife
Montgomery, Alabama
I was raised in Monrovia, Missouri—a sleepy river village of white houses and brick buildings, an idyllic setting of the type that has not survived into the new century. Before the war, my people were numbered among the most substantial in the county—my father being owner and proprietor of the ferry at Monrovia and also its largest warehouse.
But the war, as you might imagine, changed all that. Even though Monrovia was well north of the regular lines, my father’s holdings were plundered by Yankees on more than one occasion. For a time we were protected from such marauders by Captain Arthur Howell and his Partisan Rangers. And it was while the Captain made his headquarters in Monrovia that I became acquainted with Jess
