Slavery never disappears; it just evolves and continues to influence its subjects in different ways. One manifestation was the “Lost Cause” view of slavery and the Civil War.

The Great Dismal Swamp covers southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. Maroons began settling there in the late 1600s and continued living there well into the mid-19th century.

After William Byrd II and George Washington first planned the Dismal Swamp Canal, Virginia approved construction in 1787, and North Carolina in 1790. A North Carolina/Virginia private company, the Dismal Swamp Canal Company, began construction in 1793.

Humans have lived in and around the Great Dismal Swamp for thousands of years. Indigenous people hunted, fished, farmed nearby lands, and used the swamp as a seasonal resource and refuge. The rough terrain and abundant resources served them well, as did their ability to hide when needed.

In the Antebellum South (1815–1861), the planter class ensured a rigid, hierarchical society. Small farmers, or Yeomen, white workers, and poor whites made up seventy-five percent of the white population, but the wealthy planters controlled everything else. This produced significant economic and social tensions between the two classes.

Young Southern Belles who married into another elite plantation family assumed the role of plantation mistress, often as young as 18–20. Even though accustomed to plantation life, they found transitioning to the role of plantation mistress difficult. As their own diaries reveal, beneath the surface of privilege lay a private world of isolation, exhaustion, and quiet misery.